THE 

Substance  of  Literature 

BEING  AN  ESSAY 

PRINCIPALLY  ON  THE  INFLUENCE  OF 
THE  SUBJECT  MATTER 

SIN,  ffl 

IN  TJTJa^ATJURE, 

gnnnifin  anj  moil 

xa 

«     a     ;>T 
By  L"P.  ' 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS     BENTON 

I9J3 


LOVE  AND  DEATH 

From  the  Painting 

By 
G.   F.  WATTS,   R.  A. 

Reproduced  uilh  the  permission  of  Mn-    Watti 


MB 


THE 

Substance  of  Literature 

BEING  AN  ESSAY 

PRINCIPALLY  ON  THE  INFLUENCE  OF 
THE  SUBJECT  MATTER 

OF 

SIN,  IGNORANCE  AND  MISERY 
IN  LITERATURE 

By  L.  P.  GRATACAP,  A.  M. 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS     BENTON 

1913 


Copyright  by 

FRANK  ROGERS 

1913 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 

MRS.  OLIVER  LAY 

WHOSE  INTEREST  IN  THE  THEME  HERE  PRESENTED 
ENCOURAGED  THE  AUTHOR.  MANY  YEARS 
AFTER  HER  DEATH,  TO  FINISH  THIS  WORK 


CONTENTS 


Chapter    I    Substance  of  Literature  7 

II    Evolution  of  Literary  Types  -                  -  46 

"      III    French  Literature                                     -  127 

"     IV    The  SIN  substance  of  Literature      -         -  1 66 

V    The  SIN  substance  of  Literature  in  Drama 

and  Poetry           -                                     -  198 

"      VI    The   SIN   substance  and  the   MISERY 

substance  of  Literature  in  Fiction             -  231 

"    VII    IGNORANCE  as  the  substance  of  Poetry  263 

"  VIII   The  Conclusion  280 


t/lssurement  il  sera  bon  que  le  boiteux 
de  la  tragedie  boite  comme  Hephaistos; 
il  sera  bon  que  I'insense  s'abandonne 
aux  fureurs  d'Ajax,  que  la  femme 
incestueuse  renouvelle  les  crimes  de 
'Phedre,  que  le  traitre  trahisse,  que 
le  fourbe  mente,  que  le  meutrier  tue, 
et  quand  la  piece  sera  jouee,  tous  les 
acteurs,  rots,  justes,  tyrans,  sanguin- 
aires,  vierges,  pieuses,  epouses  impudi- 
ques,  citoyens  magnanimes  et  laches 
assassins  recevront  du  poete  une  part 
egale  de  felicitations. 

France 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

Literature  is  of  course  not  simply  words,  the 
literal  succession  of  vocables  in  an  intelligible  form. 
It  is  not  essentially  bound  books  and  printed  pages. 
Its  nature  is  more  correctly  perhaps  a  class  of  mental 
impressions  in  the  production  of  which  these  signs 
and  forms  and  sensible  manifestations,  and  embodi- 
ments are  today  associated.  But  such  physical  ren- 
ditions of  literature  are  not  necessary,  and  the  tra- 
ditional welding  of  stories  and  events,  ideas  and  relig- 
ious rites  into  verbal  compositions  repeated  by  word 
of  mouth,  and  "learned  by  heart,"  is  the  well  known 
form  which  literature  presents  in  the  earlier  days, 
where  the  vehicle  becomes  reduced  to  the  thinnest 
possible  objective  form,  a  series  of  audible  articula- 
tions, lost  almost  in  their  utterance.  In  this  phase 
of  literary  activity  literature  reveals  its  real  character, 
and  is  detached  from  the  secondary  and  artificial 
media  by  which  it  is  made  negotiable,  permanent 
and  ponderable. 

Max  Muller  says,  "how  then  were  these  ancient 
hymns  and  the  Brahmanas  and,  it  may  be  said,  the 

[7] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Sutras  too,  preserved?  Entirely  by  memory,  but 
by  memory  kept  under  the  strictest  discipline. 

"As  far  back  as  we  know  anything  of  India,  we 
find  that  the  years  which  we  spend  at  school,  and  at 
university,  were  spent  by  the  sons  of  the  three  higher 
classes  in  learning  from  the  mouth  of  a  teacher  their 
sacred  literature.  *  *  *  *  These  men,  I  know  it  as  a 
fact,  know  the  whole  Rig  Veda  by  heart,  just  as  their 
ancestors  did,  three  or  four  thousand  years  ago;  and 
though  they  have  MSS  and  though  they  now  have 
a  printed  text,  they  do  not  learn  their  sacred  lore 
from  them.  They  learn  it  as  their  ancestors  learnt  it, 
thousands  of  years  ago,  from  the  mouth  of  a  teacher, 
so  that  the  Vedic  succession  should  never  be  broken." 
A  friend  of  Prof.  Muller  engaged  in  preparing  notes 
for  the  professor's  edition  of  the  Rig  Veda  wrote 
to  him,  referring  to  these  men,  "I  am  collecting  a  few 
of  our  walking  Rig  Veda  MSS,  taking  your  text  as 
a  basis,  I  find  a  good  many  differences  which  I  shall 
soon  be  able  to  examine  more  closely,  when  I  may  be 
able  to  say  whether  they  are  various  readings  or  not." 

Gladstone  (/uven/us  MunJi)  discussing  the  ob- 
jections made  to  the  acceptance  of  the  authenticity 
of  the  Homeric  poems,  on  the  ground  of  the  difficulty 
of  their  retention  by  unaided  memory,  says,  "that 
they  could  not  be  transmitted  orally,  is  also  very  com- 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

monly  denied.  Quintillian  says  Invenio  apud  Plat- 
onem  obstare  memoriae  usum  literarum.  Even  in 
the  period  when  the  exercise  of  the  memory  had 
become  subject  to  this  disadvantage,  Nicerator,  ac- 
cording to  Xenophon,  stated  that  he  knew  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  by  heart;  and  Athenaeus  states  that 
Cassander,  King  of  Macedon,  could  do  nearly  as 
much;  he  could  repeat  the  chief  part  of  the  poems." 
Grote  in  the  twenty-first  chapter  of  his  great  work, 
wherein  he  discusses  the  epic  cycle  and  Homer, 
says,  "nor  will  it  be  found,  after  all,  that  the  effort 
of  memory  required  either  from  bards  or  rhapsodes, 
even  for  the  longest  of  these  old  epic  poems — though 
doubtless  great,  was  at  all  superhuman.  Taking  the 
case  with  reference  to  the  entire  Iliad  and  Odyssey, 
we  know  that  there  were  educated  gentlemen  at 
Athens  who  could  repeat  both  poems  by  heart." 
And  in  a  note  to  this  passage  he  recalls  "the  labor- 
ious discipline  of  the  Gallic  Druids,  and  the  number 
of  unwritten  verses  which  they  retained  in  their  mem- 
ories," as  noticed  by  Caesar,  and  refers  to  Heroditus 
as  a  witness  to  "the  prodigious  memory  of  the  Egyp- 
tian priests  at  Heliopolis." 

If  we  consider  carefully  then  the  nature  of  Litera- 
ture, when  we  have,  so  to  speak,  divested  it  of  those 
sensible  embodiments  which  give  it  a  physical  objec- 

[9] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

tivity,  we  find  it  to  be  composition — a  related,  con- 
tinuous, and  purposive  arrangement  of  ideas  and 
facts,  expressed  in  language,  by  which  the  mind  of 
the  auditor  is  informed  or  charmed  or  stimulated.  In 
this  designation  we  could  hardly  include  very  trivial 
though  useful  examples  of  verbal  records,  as  the  cat- 
alogue of  a  king's  wardrobe,  the  toilet  of  a  princess, 
or  the  menu  of  a  Roman  banquet.  They  do  not 
conform  to  the  notion  of  composition — a  continu- 
ous related  and  purposive  arrangement  of  ideas  and 
facts,  for,  as  Taine  says,  "the  more  a  book  represents 
visible  sentiments,  the  more  it  is  a  work  of  Literature ; 
for  the  proper  office  of  Literature  is  to  take  note  of 
the  sentiments,"  and  as  sentiments  proceed  from  facts, 
their  study  or  their  philosophy,  or  are  illustrated  by 
facts,  Literature  is  a  plant  growing  in  the  soil  of  his- 
tory and  bearing  flowers  of  ideation,  spirituality,  and 
artistic  beauty. 

But  what  makes  a  literary  work,  what  is  its  sub- 
stance, what  expresses  the  totality  of  those  mental 
impressions  it  makes  upon  us?  It  is  the  subject 
matter,  the  style — including  the  word  aspect  of  the 
composition,  its  verbal  stuff — and  the  treatment. 
Every  literary  work  must  be  about  something,  must 
convey  a  substantial  reference  to  an  idea  or  a  fact; 
even  the  most  volatile  and  chasing  race  of  prettily 

[10] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

united  words  must  mean  something,  say  something. 
Neither  Catullus  nor  Austin  Dobson  can  escape  this 
sane  necessity.  Then  comes  the  style,  that  elective 
skill,  temperamental  or  educational  or  mimetic,  by 
which  a  writer  builds  his  idea  in  words,  or  to  use 
a  different  simile  casts  the  fluid  magma  of  his  thought 
in  phrases,  collocated  and  linked  clauses,  making 
this  sound  image  repeat  to  the  world  his  exact  or 
peculiar  conceptions. 

"Omnis  igitur  oratio  conficitur  ex  verbis;  quorum 
primum  nobis  ratio  simpliciter  videnda  est;  deinde 
conjuncte:  nam  est  quidam  ornatus  orationis,  qui  ex 
singulis  verbis  est;  alius,  qui  ex  continuatis  conjunctis- 
que  constat.  Ego  utemur  verbis  aut  iis  quae  propria 
sunt  et  certa  quasi  vocabula  rerum,  paene  una  nata 
cum  rebus  ipsis;  aut  iis  quae  transferuntur,  et  quasi 
alieno  in  loco  collocantur;  aut  iis  quae  novamus  et 
facimus  ipsi." 

"Therefore  all  oration  is  made  up  of  words,  of 
which  first  the  method  is  seen  to  be  simple,  then  com- 
posite; for  there  is  a  certain  decoration  of  the  oration 
arising  from  single  words,  another  which  resides  in 
their  succession  and  conjunction.  Therefore  we  make 
use  of  words,  either  such  as  are,  as  it  were,  proper 
and  exact  vocables  of  things,  being  almost  born  with 

[11] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

the  things  themselves:  or  such  as  are  transferred  and 
as  it  were  gathered  in  a  different  place,  or  such  as  we 
introduce  and  make  ourselves"  Cicero,  DeOratore 
Lib.  III.  Cap.  XXXVII. 

Dr.  Blair  describes  the  characters  of  style  as  dif- 
fuse, concise,  feeble,  nervous,  dry,  plain,  neat,  ele- 
gant, flowery;  and  Spencer  says  "the  perfect  writer 
will  express  himself  as  Junius  when  in  the  Junius 
frame  of  mind;  when  he  feels  as  Lamb  felt,  will  use 
a  familiar  speech ;  and  will  fall  into  the  ruggedness  of 
Carlyle  when  in  a  Carlylean  mood;"  but  whatever 
distinctions  are  made,  and  whatever  its  cause,  style 
results  from  the  conjunction  and  character  of  words 
as  the  pattern  of  a  silk  is  made  from  the  combination 
of  different  colored  threads,  or  the  form  of  a  flower 
from  the  elements  of  its  floral  envelope. 

The  treatment  of  a  subject  is  the  third  element  of 
literary  substance,  and  means  the  form  of  composition 
as  a  whole,  the  form  of  its  parts,  the  relation  and  suc- 
cession of  its  parts,  the  pitch  of  its  expression,  light  or 
gay  or  grave,  its  arrangements  of  detail,  of  lights  and 
shadows,  in  short  its  artistic  effectiveness.  It  reveals 
the  power  of  an  author  to  seize  and  reproduce  a  de- 
terminate, definable  impression,  to  the  making  of 
which  all  the  sections  of  his  work  have  accumula- 
tively ministered.  For  instance  critics,  especially  in 

[12] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

France,  have  spent  some  time  in  picking  out  the  dis- 
tinctions to  be  made  between  the  classic  and  romantic 
schools  of  writing,  particularly  in  the  drama,  which 
schools  are  strikingly  contrasted  in  their  treatment. 
The  classic  school  has  been  compared,  in  disparage- 
ment, to  a  royal  garden  of  Versailles;  "bien  nivele 
bien  taille,  bien  nettoye,  bien  ratisse,  bien  sable; 
tout  plein  de  petites  cascades,  de  petits  bassins,  de 
petits  bosquets,  de  tritons  de  bronze  folatrant  en 
ceremonie  sur  des  oceans  pompes  a  grands  frais  dans 
la  Seine,  de  faunes  de  marbre  courtisant  les  dryades 
allegoriquement  renfermees  dans  une  multitude 
d,  ifs  coniques,  de  lauriers  cylindriques,  d'orangers 
spherique,  de  myrtes  elliptiques  et  d'  autres  arbres 
dont  la  forme  naturelle,  trop  triviale  sans  doute,  a 

etc  gracieusement  corrigee  par  la  serpette  du  jardi- 

•     »» 
nier. 

And  the  romantic  school  has  been  favorably 
likened  to  a  primeval  forest: 

"avec  ses  arbres  geants,  ses  hautes  herbes,  sa  veg- 
etation profonde,  ses  mille  oiseaux  de  mille  coleurs, 
ses  larges  avenues,  ou  1,  ombre  et  la  lumiere  ne  se 
jouent  que  sur  la  verdure,  ses  sauvages  harmonies, 
ses  grands  fleuves  qui  charrient  des  iles  de  fleurs,  ses 
immenses  cataractes  qui  balancent  des  arcs-en-ciel!" 

The  French  classic  drama,  that  of  Racine  and 

[13] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Corneille  is  well  contrasted  with  the  irregular  action 
of  the  plays  of  Victor  Hugo,  Dumas,  and  Gautier. 

Less  generalized  examples  of  treatment  recur  to 
everyone — the  art  with  which  in  George  Elliot's 
Romola,  in  the  first  chapter,  we  are  thrown  back  in 
the  atmosphere  and  society  of  mediaeval  Florence, 
and  so  immersed  in  the  local  color  and  life  that  the 
events  of  the  story  borrow  this  antique  illusion,  and 
we  watch  the  drama  of  Tito's  perfidy  and  Romola's 
disenchantment  and  despair  with  eyes  that  have  be- 
come accustomed 

to  the  fair  white  walls, 

Where  the  Etrurian  Athens  claims  and  keeps 
A  softer  feeling  for  her  fairy  halls. 

The  conception  and  treatment  of  the  Pilgrims' 
Progress,  by  Bunyan,  is  an  unapproached  example  of 
perfect  allegory.  The  graphic  narrative,  the  enter- 
taining and  suggestive  dialogue,  the  delightful  and 
descriptive  epithets  and  names,  the  recurrent  crude- 
ness  and  abrupt  incidents,  unintentional  of  course  but 
exhilarating  and  helpful  to  a  rude  but  valuable  real- 
ism, the  quick  cutting  satire  and  humour,  and  the 
straightforward  conduct  of  an  intense  composition 
have  placed  this  fable  amongst  the  brightest  and  most 
admired  gems  of  English  literature. 

[14] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

In  Milton's  Paradise  Lost  we  find  an  example  of 
treatment  of  august  distinction.  How  many  careful 
critics  have  pointed  out  the  heightening  effect  of  that 
vague  adumbration  and  half  discovered  movement, 
which  the  great  poet  has  employed  in  his  description 
of  Hell  and  its  terrific  populace,  and  of  that  supreme 
voyage  of  Satan,  who. 

with  thoughts  inflamed  of  highest  design 
Puts  on  swift  wings,  and  towards  the  gates  of  hell 
Explores  his  solitary  flight. 

It  is  true  the  discreet  Addison,  who  was  some- 
thing of  a  haberdasher  in  poetry  himself,  complains 
(very  kindly  of  course)  of  Milton's  language  "as 
often  much  labored,  and  sometimes  obscured  by  old 
words,  transpositions,  and  foreign  idioms,"  but  Mr. 
Garnett  who  has  a  less  narrowwaisted  taste,  and  the 
gift  of  the  modern  faculty  says  of  this  masterpiece: 
that  it  conforms  to  the  highest  standards  of  literary 
art,  and  displays  throughout,  a  marvelous  learning 
and  an  unrivalled  power  of  language. 

And  Prof.  Woodberry  has  added  only  lately  the 
convincing  tribute  of  his  appreciation  in  the  "Torch" 
(Lectures  delivered  before  the  Lowell  Institute) ; 
"but  no  words  I  can  use  would  sufficiently  express 
the  admiration  which  this  poem  excites  in  me — not 
merely  for  its  unrivalled  music,  nor  for  its  style  which 

[15] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Matthew  Arnold  thought  keeps  it  alive,  but  for  its 
construction  as  an  act  of  intellect,  for  its  sublime 
imagination  in  dealing  with  infinite  space,  infinite 
time,  and  eternity,  and  the  beings  of  eternity:  for  its 
beautiful  surface  in  the  scenes  in  Paradise,  its  idyllic 
sweetness  and  charm,  the  habitual  eloquence  and 
noble  demeanor  in  the  characters." 

In  each  of  these  three  ingredients  of  the  substance 
of  Literature — style,  treatment,  and  the  subject 
matter — there  is  an  impersonal  and  a  personal  ele- 
ment, that  is,  there  is  an  uncontrolled  resident  factor 
of  permanence,  and  a  factor  of  voluntary  choice.  In 
style  the  impersonal  element  is  the  language  which 
is  a  fixed  scarcely  variable  unit.  The  slight  novel- 
ties which  an  exuberant  or  unrestrained  fancy  can 
introduce,  are  necessarily  few,  and  after  a  language 
has  reached  its  maturity,  has  crystallized  into  its  final 
shape,  has  completed  its  vocabulary  and  settled  its 
grammatical  and  idiomatic  expression,  though  it  re- 
sponds to  a  slow  secular  tendency  of  change,  it,  at 
any  short  period  of  time,  is  finished  and  immovable. 

The  words  of  Chaucer,  himself  an  innovator,  even 
at  that  early  emergence  of  our  tongue  from  an  amor- 
phous consistency  of  Norman-French,  Anglo-Saxon, 
Celtic,  and  Latin*  are  practically  the  same  as  those  of 

*Mr.  Skeat  in  his  Etymological  Dictionary  "finds  that  of  1 3,500  primary  words,  4,000 
are  of  Teutonic  origin,  5,000  taken  from  the  French,  2,700  direct  from  the  Latin,  400 
from  the  Greek,  250  from  the  Celtic,  and  the  rest  from  various  sources." 

[16] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Tennyson,  the  words  of  Froissart  in  the  thirteenth 
century  are  unmistakably  French,  and  are  not  so  con- 
siderably contrasted  with  the  words  of  Victor  Hugo 
in  the  nineteenth,  the  verses  of  Dante  imply  a  lan- 
guage and  construction  familiar  in  the  lines  of  Maz- 
zoni  or  the  pages  of  D'Annuncio,  and  the  sentences 
of  Cervantes  are  certainly  intelligible  to  the  admirers 
of  Madame  Bazan. 

The  fable  of  Reynard  the  Fox  marks  the  early 
birth  of  the  German  tongue  and  the  Nieberlungen 
Lied  and  the  Heldenbuch  furnish  the  sentiment  and 
the  rugged  euphony  of  the  language  of  Schiller  and 
Goethe,  just  as  in  Piers  the  Plowman,  Jusserand  has 
indicated  the  subliminal  conditions  of  English  speech : 
"his  poem  is  not  only  strange,  it  is  likewise  grand 
and  beautiful,  and  is  far  from  being  as  well  known 
as  it  should  be.  From  a  historical  point  of  view, 
again,  it  offers  considerable  interest,  for,  as  in  Chau- 
cer's tales,  all  England  is  in  it.  The  same  types  are 
there:  knights,  monks,  mendicant  friars,  pardoners, 
London  shopkeepers,  poor  workingmen,  honest 
laborers,  gay  tavern-haunting  roysters,  and  pious 
clerks,  creeping  to  heaven  under  the  shadow  of  the 
church.'* 

The  large  additions  made  by  science,  and  the 
scientific  fashions  of  writing  in  all  branches  of  learn- 

[17] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ing  have  widened  the  scope  and  augmented  the  dic- 
tionaries of  language,  but  the  linguistic  strain  and 
the  linguistic  matter  for  purposes  of  literary  employ- 
ment are  not  greatly  changed. 

At  any  rate  at  the  time  an  author  writes,  he  finds 
(unless  he  incurs  against  himself  the  accusation  which 
Chaucer  raised  of  bringing  in  "cartloads  of  words" 
from  some  other  source)  a  language,  a  solidified  and 
shaped  mass  of  words  and  constructions.  M.  Albert 
has  well  expressed  a  conviction  similar  in  import, 
though  the  paragraph  encloses  a  reference  to  the  dis- 
appearance of  words  along  with  the  extinction  of 
ideas ; 

"Toute  epoque  a  ses  idees  propres,  il  faut  qu, 
elle  ait  aussi  les  mots  propres  a  ses  idees.  Les  langues 
sont  comme  le  mer,  elles  oscillent  sans  cesse.  A  cer- 
taines  temps  elles  quittent  un  rivage  du  monde  de  la 
pensee  et  en  envahissent  un  autre.  Tout  ce  que 
leur  flot  deserte  ainsi  seche  et  s'efface  du  sol.  C'est 
de  cette  fac.on  que  des  idees  s'  eteignent,  que  des 
mots  s'  en  vont." 

But  Symonds  has  distinctly  said  "an  Italian  can- 
not put  into  words  exactly  the  same  shade  of  thought 
as  a  German,  or  an  Englishman  as  a  Frenchman, 
the  genius  of  the  mother  tongue  in  each  case  forbids 
identity  of  utterance." 

[18] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

The  personal  element  in  the  element  of  style  is 
obvious.  It  is  the  personal  skill,  ingenuity,  power 
and  insight  of  an  author  to  put  his  thoughts  in  words 
so  that  the  words  express  it  clearly,  and  as  it  were 
imitatively.  It  is  that  magic  of  choice,  that  instinct 
of  accurate  selection  by  which  the  style  expresses 
the  mind.  Again  we  may  quote  Symonds  accept- 
ably "style,  in  Literature,  may  be  roughly  described 
as  the  adequate  investiture  of  thought  with  language. 
The  best  style  is  that  in  which  no  other  verbal  form 
could  be  imagined  more  appropriate  for  the  utterance 
of  thought  than  the  one  which  has  been  given  by  the 
author.  'Proper  words  in  proper  places  make  the 
true  definition  of  a  style'  said  Swift." 

Shakespeare  is  the  supreme  example  of  this  power, 
for  words  flowed  into  the  matrix  of  his  thought  as 
liquid  metal  into  the  configuration  of  a  mould,  repro- 
ducing each  outward  and  inward  curve.  Are  not 
these  instances  exemplars  of  perfection  of  style,  as 
they  are  models  of  imaginative  execution  ? 
Othello:  "If  I  do  prove  her  haggard, 

Though  that  her  jesses  were  my  dear  heart  strings 

I'd  whistle  her  off,  and  let  her  down  the  wind 

To  prey  at  fortune." 

Hamlet:    "No !  let  candied  tongue  lick  absurd  pomp, 

[19] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

And  crook  the  pregnant  hinges  of  the  knee, 
Where  thrift  may  follow  fawning." 
Romeo:  O!  here 

Will  I  set  up  my  everlasting  rest, 
And  shake  the  yoke  of  inauspicious  stars 
From  this  world-wearied  flesh.  Eyes  look  your  last, 
Arms  take  you  last  embrace :  and  lips  O !  you 
The  doors  of  breath,  seal  with  a  righteous  kiss, 
A  dateless  bargain  to  engrossing  death ! 
Come  bitter  conduct,  come,  unsavory  guide ! 
Thou  desperate  pilot,  now  at  once  run  on 
The  dashing  rocks,  thy  sea-sick  weary  bark." 
Ruskin,  the  "lunatic  with  a  style,"  possessed  ex- 
quisite power  in  the  control  and  use  of  words,  and 
Carlyle,  a  man  of  verbal  affectations  and  aberrant 
phraseology  displayed  a  style  of  singular  descriptive 
force  and  rare  picturesque  suggestiveness.     Here  are 
two  extracts  from  these  writers  lying  side  by  side  and 
their  individuality  and  innate  differences  heighten  the 
beauty  of  each. 

Here  is  what  Ruskin  says  of  a  blade  of  grass: 
"gather  a  single  blade  of  grass,  and  examine  for  a 
minute,  quietly,  its  narrow  sword-shaped  strip  of 
fluted  green.  Nothing,  as  it  seems  there,  of  notable 
goodness  or  beauty.  A  very  little  strength, 
and  a  very  little  tallness  and  a  few  delicate 

[20] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

long  lines  meeting  in  a  point — not  a  perfect 
point  either,  but  blurred  and  unfinished,  by 
no  means  a  creditable  or  apparently  much 
cared  for  example  of  Nature's  workmanship,  made, 
as  it  seems,  only  to  be  trodden  on  today,  and  tomor- 
row to  be  cast  into  the  oven:  and  a  little  pale  and 
hollow  stalk,  feeble  and  flaccid,  leading  down  to  the 
dull  brown  fibre  of  roots.  And  yet,  think  of  it  well, 
and  judge  whether  of  all  the  gorgeous  flowers  that 
beam  in  summer  air,  and  of  all  strong  and  goodly 
trees,  pleasant  to  the  eye  and  good  for  food — stately 
palm  and  pine,  strong  ash  and  oak,  scented  citron, 
burdened  vine — there  be  any  by  man  so  deeply  loved, 
by  God  so  highly  graced  as  that  narrow  point  of 
feeble  green." 

And  here  on  the  other  hand  is  Carlyle  describing 
the  Revolution  of  France:  "what  then  is  this  Thing, 
called  La  Revolution,  which  like  an  Angel  of  Death, 
hangs  over  France,  noyading,  fusillading,  fighting, 
gunboring,  tanning  human  skins?  La  Revolution  is 
but  so  many  Alphabetic  Letters;  a  thing  nowhere  to 
be  laid  hands  on,  to  be  clapt  under  lock  and  key; 
where  is  it?  What  is  it?  It  is  the  madness  that 
dwells  in  the  hearts  of  men.  In  this  man  it  is,  and  in 
that  man ;  as  a  rage  or  as  a  terror,  it  is  in  all  men.  In- 
visible, impalpable;  and  yet  no  black  Azrael,  with 

[21] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

wings  spread  over  half  a  continent,  with  sword 
sweeping  from  sea  to  sea,  could  be  a  truer  Reality." 

And  the  poets,  whose  nature  expresses  itself  with 
an  unchecked  impulse  of  delight  and  power,  render 
in  their  styles  their  personal  distinction.  As  Mr. 
Masson  describes  it  we  find  in  Wordsworth  "the 
exquisite  propriety  and  delicacy  of  his  style,  his  easy 
and  perfect  mastery  over  the  element  of  language;" 
"greater  smoothness  and  beauty  and  more  of  strict 
logical  coherence,  in  Wordsworth's  style  than  is  usual 
even  among  careful  poets,  as  well  as  a  more  close 
fitting  of  the  language  to  the  measure  of  the  thought, 
and  a  comparative  freedom  from  forced  rhymes,  and 
jarring  evasions  of  natural  forms  of  words." 

Of  Keats,  Masson  says  "he  possessed  in  short,  sim- 
ply in  virtue  of  his  organization,  a  rich  intellectual1 
foundation  of  that  kind  which  consists  of  notions, 
furnished  directly  by  sensations,  and  of  a  correspond- 
ing stock  of  names  and  terms.  Even  had  he  remained 
without  education,  his  natural  vocabulary  of  words 
for  all  the  varieties  of  thrills,  tastes,  odors,  sounds, 
colors,  and  tactual  perceptions,  would  have  been 
unusually  precise  and  extensive." 

There  is  no  denying  the  individuality  of  the  style 
of  Robert  Browning.  It  is  one  of  the  perplexities 
of  literature.  Many  a  man  has  chased  his  patience 

[22] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

out  of  doors  trying  to  understand  him,  and  felt  no 
compunction  at  venting  a  vociferous  scorn  on  his  un- 
intelligibility.  Tennyson  himself  said  he  understood 
only  two  lines  of  his  Sordello.  Browning's  style 
reaches  a  kind  of  ferocity  of  disorder,  and  tumultuous 
oddity.  But  how  effective!  Of  these  singularities, 
which  were  imbedded  and  philosophical  consisten- 
cies, G.  K.  Chesterton,  Browning's  latest  and  most 
effective  student  and  disciple,  has  said,  "Browning's 
verse,  in  so  far  as  it  is  grotesque,  is  not  complex  or 
artificial;  it  is  natural  and  in  the  legitimate  tradition 
of  nature.  The  verse  sprawls  like  the  trees,  dances 
like  the  dust;  it  is  ragged  like  the  thunder  cloud,  it 
is  top-heavy,  like  the  toad  stool.  Energy  which 
disregards  the  standard  of  classical  art  is  in  nature 
as  it  is  in  Browning.  The  same  sense  of  the  uproar- 
ious force  in  things  which  makes  Browning  dwell  on 
the  oddity  of  a  fungus  or  a  jellyfish  makes  him  dwell 
on  the  oddity  of  a  philosophical  idea." 

Yet  beyond  the  widest  vagaries  of  speech,  of  liter- 
ary caprice,  the  circumscribing  limits  of  national 
speech  remain  inviolate  and  precise.  Like  the  pre- 
ordained boundaries  of  ordinal  form  in  animal  life 
wherein,  a  mollusk,  throughout  the  whole  range  of  its 
diversities  in  shape  and  function,  never  becomes  a 
crustacean  or  a  fish,  the  styles  possible  to  a  tongue 

[23] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

are  its  own  and  not  another's. 

In  treatment  the  impersonal  element  is  the  fashion 
of  the  day,  in  literary  measures,  by  which  a  current 
of  feeling  is  set  in  one  direction,  and  the  taste  and 
appetite  of  the  reading  public  or  the  patrons  of  litera- 
ture so  formed  as  to  act  compulsorily  upon  the  writer. 
And  the  writer,  as  an  element  himself  of  the  literary 
life  of  the  time  instinctively  obeys  the  same  monitions, 
follows  the  same  habit,  and  deals  with  his  subjects 
after  a  conventional  form. 

As  M.  Albert  says  'Vest  1'esprit  d'une  epoque, 
ce  sont  ses  institutions,  ses  moeurs,  ses  prejuges,  qui 
determinent  d'abord  la  forme  de  1'oeuvre."  Thus 
the  treatment  of  the  drama  in  the  days  of  Louis  XIV, 
was  prescribed  by  a  severe  chaste  classicism  which 
respected  the  unities  of  time,  place,  and  action,  in- 
sisted upon  a  courtly  and  decorous  movement,  and 
progressively  narrowed  the  area  of  invention.  It 
elicited  those  limpid  and  exquisitely  polished  plays 
with  which  Corneille  and  Racine  have  enriched 
French  literature,  wherein  the  exactitudes  of  royal 
etiquette,  the  refinement  of  artificial  grace,  and  the 
proprieties  of  verbal  expression,  have  mingled  in  a 
creation,  dramatic  in  character,  where  the  action  is 
all  rythmical  and  uniform,  and  the  personages  superb 
and  inaccessible,  where  natural  emotion  is  hidden 

[24] 


beneath  the  nacre  of  an  inimitable  style,  and  natural 
action  inexorably  directed  by  the  baton  of  a  master 
of  ceremonies. 

In  the  novels  of  Richardson,  Fielding,  Smollett, 
and  Miss  Burney,  we  can  easily  see  a  method  or 
fashion  of  treatment  by  which  they  can  be  assigned 
to  one  literary  epoch.  There  is  a  simple  alignment  of 
events,  a  string  of  incidents,  which  display  the  char- 
acters in  a  narrational  succession.  Interest  is  con- 
stantly evoked  by  a  new  predicament,  and  the  dia- 
logue is  concerned  with  expressing  the  superficial 
emotional  excitement  of  the  moment,  by  which  the 
reader  is  informed  or  aroused  or  amused.  This  linear 
treatment  is  diverting,  and  resembles  a  series  of  re- 
lated pictures  whose  connections  are  made  more 
obvious  by  the  sagacity  and  instinct  of  the  exhibitor 
as  he  simulates  the  voice  of  each  character,  or  brings 
them  into  juxtapositions  that  are  ridiculous  or 
pathetic.  The  involution  of  circumstance  and  char- 
acter, the  reflections  of  the  interior  surfaces  of  different 
natures  cast  outward  in  voice  and  action,  the  omni- 
present sense  of  plot,  passing  through  its  various 
phases  of  reaction  from  a  suggested  uncertainty 
through  deepening  stages  of  obscurity  and  aberrant 
and  delightful  chapters  of  excitement,  until  the  diges- 
tion of  its  parts  completed,  a  lucid  and  entertaining 

[25] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

result  is  secured — these  characteristics  belong  to  more 
modern  novelists  though,  to  be  sure,  not  the  latest. 

This  previous  modelling  of  the  treatment — a 
growth  of  circumstances,  tastes  and  precedents — of 
a  literary  subject,  to  whose  outlines  the  successful 
writer  conforms  is  the  impersonal  element  in  this  sec- 
ond ingredient  of  the  substance  of  literature,  but  it 
does  not  exclude  a  personal  element.  The  personal 
element  appears  in  the  diversifications  of  a  popular  or 
conventional  treatment,  in  its  modifications,  in  an 
elision  of  some  of  its  members,  in  a  revolt  against  it, 
or  in  an  exacting  conformity  to  it. 

Racine  and  Corneille  both  follow  a  classical  treat- 
ment; it  is  a  willing  and  desirable  subjugation,  but 
in  Racine  there  is  a  less  restrained  use  of  the  soliloquy, 
not  such  evenly  distributed  parts  and  occasional  em- 
ployment of  adventitious  decoration  as  with  the  chor- 
uses in  Esther.  In  Corneille  the  rigid  symmetry  of 
the  classic  form  is  severely  respected,  and  the  bal- 
anced parts  continue  their  salutatory  oscillations  with 
the  precision  of  a  colloquial  pendulum. 

So  in  Fielding  and  Smollett  we  have  the  reportorial 
and  pictorial  novel,  the  panoramic  ambulatory  story, 
but  in  Fielding  the  scenes  succeed  each  other  more 
quickly  and  the  incidental  divertissements  are  more 
frequent  and  more  equivocal. 

[26] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Before  looking  at  the  personal  and  impersonal  ele- 
ment in  the  last  ingredient  of  the  substance  of  litera- 
ture, viz.  in  the  Subject  Matter,  it  is  necessary  to  have 
attention  called  to  the  fact,  that  after  all  the  imper- 
sonal element  in  the  two  other  ingredients,  Style  and 
Treatment  is  the  expression  of  a  generalized  person- 
ality, itself.  For  language,  which  is  the  impersonal 
element  in  Style,  is  the  expression  of  a  race's  tempera- 
ment. Symonds  says  "slowly  and  obscurely,  amid 
stupidity  and  ignorance  were  being  forged  the  nations 
and  the  languages  of  Europe.  Italy,  France,  Spain, 
England,  Germany,  took  shape.  The  action  of  the 
future  drama  acquired  their  several  characters,  and 
formed  the  tongues  whereby  their  personalities  should 
be  expressed." 

And  the  same  cultivated  writer  says  of  the  types 
of  literature — wherein  lies  the  element  of  Treatment 
— that  they  distinguish  groups  of  men  and  national 
eras.  He  says,  (Speculative  and  Suggestive  Essays) 
"the  germ,  however  generated,  is  bound  to  expand; 
the  form  however  determined  controls  the  genius, 
which  seeks  expression  through  this  medium.  In  the 
earliest  stages  of  expansion  the  artist  becomes  half  a 
prophet,  and  'sows  with  the  whole  sack,'  in  the  plen- 
titude  of  superabundant  inspiration.  After  the  orig- 
inal passion  for  the  ideas  to  be  embodied  in  art  has 

[27] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

somewhat  subsided,  when  the  form  is  fixed  and  its 
capacities  can  be  severely  measured  but  before  the 
glow  and  fire  of  enthusiasm  have  faded  out,  there 
comes  a  second  period.  In  this  period  art  is  studied 
more  for  art's  sake,  but  the  generative  potency  of  the 
first  founders  is  by  no  means  exhausted;"  "it  is  im- 
possible to  return  upon  the  past;  the  vigor  of  those 
former  workers  may  survive  in  their  successors,  but 
their  inspiration  has  taken  shape,  forever  in  their 
works.  And  that  shape  abides  fixed  in  the  habits 
of  the  nation.  The  type  cannot  be  changed  because 
the  type  grew  itself  out  of  the  very  nature  of  the 
people  who  are  still  existent." 

Treatment  is  indeed  the  expression  of  that  Taine 
has  specified  as  the  "elementary  moral  state,"  and 
which  he  determines  to  be  the  resultant  of  the  race, 
the  surroundings  and  the  epoch;  the  last  two  of 
course,  as  modifying  agencies,  eliciting  or  retarding 
hidden  capabilities,  ripening  or  sterilizing  the  func- 
tional appetite  and  mental  fruitage  of  the  first — the 
race. 

Thus  Style  and  Treatment,  though  approximately 
separable  into  two  elements  as  personal  and  imper- 
sonal are  reconditely  and  ultimately  referable  to 
human  attributes.  They  embody  the  superficial 
configurations  of  the  mental  aspect  of  a  period 

[28] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

or  people,  but  refer  also  to  latent  tendencies, 
capabilities  and  tastes,  as  all  the  superficies 
of  embodied  thought  must  refer  to  the  pro- 
creative  quality  and  quantity  of  the  thought  itself. 
They  are  personal  expressions,  whether  inceptively 
genuine  and  spontaneous,  or  secondarily  modified, 
diverted  or  intensified  by  the  batteries  and  atmos- 
phere of  circumstance  and  climate. 

But  in  the  Subject  Matter,  the  third  element  in 
literary  substance,  this  separation  of  the  personal  and 
impersonal  elements  is  obviously  valid  and  conspicu- 
ous. The  substratum  of  reality — anything  that 
appeals  to  our  senses  as  scenes,  sights,  scents  and 
sounds,  or  is  retrospectively  recognized  in  imagina- 
tion as  in  the  incidents  of  history,  is  distinctly  a  collo- 
cation outside  of  us,  and  if  we  give  it  a  literary  treat- 
ment is  in  itself  impersonal.  But  our  view  of  it,  our 
thoughts  in  regard  to  it,  the  emotions  it  excites  in  us, 
the  medium  or  the  devices  we  choose  to  use  in  its 
literary  presentation  is  a  personal  element.  We  see 
the  flowing  current  of  a  little  stream,  its  banks  deeply 
buried  in  a  rich  and  sumptuous  growth  of  sedges,  of 
crowded  alders,  of  bending  and  flowering  willows, 
and  wading  within  its  waters  stand  mermaid  weeds 
and  water  hemlocks ;  its  surface  is  spotted  with  dimly 
moving  islands  of  colored  leaves;  here  it  is  wrinkled 

[29] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

by  a  breath  of  descending  air,  and  there  it  lies  in 
calm  repose  disclosing  a  glimpse  of  sandy  shoals,  and 
shooting  fishes,  with  clustered  sheaves  of  piercing 
sunrays. 

This  all  is  an  impersonal  element  in  any  literary 
lucubration  which  such  a  scene  may  suggest.  But 
how  it  shall  be  presented,  what  semi-mythic  fancies 
it  may  gather  in  our  description,  what  terms  of 
literal  instruction  we  may  devote  to  it,  or  how  we 
shall  enfold  its  suggestive  beauties  in  verse,  to  the 
reader  who  has  not  seen  it,  is  a  personal,  a  subjective, 
element,  depending  upon  the  mental,  psychological 
or  educational  peculiarities  of  ourselves,  or  even  upon 
the  plan  and  scope  of  our  object,  the  intention  for 
which  we  write  about  it  at  all. 

The  incident  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  of  her 
love  for  Lord  Leicester  and  of  the  murder  of  Amy 
Robsart  is  told  by  an  historian  in  the  ornate  and  con- 
templative manner  of  a  philosophic  chronicler,  as 
when  Hume  wrote  "the  Earl  of  Leicester,  the  great 
and  powerful  favorite  of  Elizabeth,  possessed  all 
those  exterior  qualities  which  are  naturally  alluring 
to  the  fair  sex;  a  handsome  person,  a  polite  address, 
an  insinuating  behaviour;  and  by  means  of  these 
accomplishments,  he  had  been  able  to  blind  even  the 
penetration  of  Elizabeth,  and  conceal  from  her  the 

[30] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

great  defects,  or  rather  odious  vices,  which  attended 
his  character.  He  was  proud,  insolent,  interested, 
ambitious;  without  honor,  without  generosity,  with- 
out humanity;  and  atoned  not  for  these  bad  qualities 
by  such  abilities  as  courage,  as  could  fit  him  for  that 
high  trust  and  confidence,  with  which  she  always 
honored  him.  Her  constant  and  declared  attach- 
ment to  him  had  naturally  emboldened  him  to  aspire 
to  her  bed;  and  in  order  to  make  way  for  these  nup- 
tials, he  was  universally  believed  to  have  murdered,  in 
a  barbarous  manner,  his  wife,  the  heiress  of  one  Rob- 
sart."  But  to  the  novelist  this  episode  forms  the 
pathetic  motif  of  a  beautiful  story,  and  enriched  with 
the  cabinet  splendors  of  a  stored  heraldic  mind  be- 
comes the  tragedy  of  Kenilworth  Castle. 

Keats  and  Leigh  Hunt  each  agreed  to  write  a 
poem  on  the  cricket  and  grasshopper  in  friendly 
rivalry,  and  though  the  specific  objects  were  neces- 
sarily identical  in  both  cases,  yet  how  contrasted  the 
results,  that  flowed  from  their  appeal  to  different 
minds ! 

Though  the  impersonal  element — two  orthopter- 
ous  insects — remained  unchanged  in  this  literary 
event,  the  personal  contingent  influence  in  Keats  and 
Leigh  Hunt  responded  to  different  suggestions  con- 
tained in  these  same  organisms.  Keats  coupled  the 

[31] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

cricket  with  the  grasshopper,  and  enfolded  each  in 
the  pleasing  thought  of  the  perennial  melody  of 
Nature.  He  wrote : 

The  poetry  of  earth  is  never  dead: 
When  all  the  birds  are  faint  with  the  hot  sun, 
And  hide  in  cooling  trees,  a  voice  will  run 

From  hedge  to  hedge  about  the  new-mown  mead : 

That  is  the  grasshopper's — he  takes  the  lead 
In  summer  luxury — he  has  never  done 
With  his  delights,  for  when  tired  out  with  fun, 

He  rests  at  ease  beneath  some  pleasant  weed. 

The  poetry  of  earth  is  ceasing  never : 

On  a  lone  winter  evening,  when  the  frost 
Has  wrought  a  silence,  from  the  stove  there  shrills 

The  cricket's  song,  in  warmth  increasing  ever, 

And  seems  to  one  in  drowsiness  half  lost, 
The  Grasshopper's  among  the  grassy  hills." 

Leigh  Hunt  brought  them  together  in  a  harmonic 
unison  of  mirthful  homely  sweetness  and  delight;  his 
sonnet  is  less  tenderly  contemplative  than  Keats,  and 
a  realistic  effort  in  it  seems  to  make  its  art  more 
labored  and  ingenious. 

Leigh  Hunt  wrote : 

Green  little  vaulter  in  the  sunny  grass, 
Catching  your  heart  up  at  the  feel  of  June, 
Sole  voice  that's  heard  amidst  the  lazy  noon, 

[32] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

When  even  the  bees  lag  at  the  summoning  brass 

And  you,  warm  little  housekeeper,  who  class 
With  those  who  think  the  candles  come  too  soon, 
Loving  the  fire,  and  with  your  tricksome  tune 

Nick  the  glad  silent  moments  as  they  pass; 
Oh  sweet  and  tiny  cousins,  that  belong, 

One  to  the  fields,  the  other  to  the  hearth, 
Both  have  your  sunshine;  both,  though  small,  are 
strong 

At  your  clear  hearts ;  and  both  seem  given  to  earth 
To  ring  in  thoughtful  ears  this  natural  song — 

Indoors  and  out,  summer  and  winter,  Mirth. 

But  whatever  the  personal  element  of  mind  and 
temperament  effects  in  literature,  its  excitant  is  that 
impersonal  element  in  the  subject  matter,  that  body 
of  energizing  influence  or  expression  in  things  and 
events  about  which  we  speak,  that  lies  outside  of  us, 
that  is  not  imagined  or  invented,  but  upon  which  we 
may  indeed  expend  imagination  and  invention. 
These  external  happenings,  the  events  we  hear  of, 
the  persons  and  acts  we  inspect,  the  combinations 
of  natural  and  artificial  phenomena  and  features  in 
the  world,  the  common  course  of  nature  herself,  and 
the  scenes  and  expressions  of  physical  material  life, 
of  the  wide  range  of  movements  and  incidents  of 
animal  existence,  the  more  dramatic  aspects  of  the 

[33] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

episodes  and  course  of  history,  and  the  wide  areas 
of  human  emotion,  conflict  and  progress,  these  are 
to  the  writer  the  impersonal  factor  of  his  subject 
matter. 

They  have  a  natural  objective  reality  which  he 
cannot  eliminate  or  modify,  they  form  the  irritants 
and  occasions  of  his  writing.  The  personal  element 
of  this  subject  matter  is  his  interpretation  of  them, 
his  affinity  or  repulsion  for  their  various  phases,  and 
the  productive  or  creative  crises  which  they  evoke  in 
him.  Now  the  object  of  this  essay  is  to  show  that 
a  very  large  part  of  the  most  entertaining,  the  grand- 
est, the  most  thoughtful,  the  most  varied,  subtle,  and 
diversified  literature  has  proceeded  from  the  imper- 
sonal element  in  the  occurrences  and  the  appearances 
of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery.  That  if  we  are  to 
form  any  estimate  of  a  possible  literature  after  this 
life,  and  if  that  life  as  we  all  generally  hope,  will  be 
more  serene  and  blissful  than  this  one,  then  its  litera- 
ture will  lose  those  characteristics  of  the  impersonal 
element  which  in  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery  have 
contributed  so  much  to  the  wealth  and  merit  of  that 
we  now  possess  in  any  and  all  languages.  And 
derivatively,  if  in  a  less  degree,  the  literature  of  im- 
proved or  improving  society  must  suffer  a  delimina- 

[34] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

tion  and  curtailment  with  its  progressive  suppression 
of  these  three  facts. 

Especially  we  wish  to  draw  attention  to  an  aspect 
of  literary  fertility  which  is  not,  to  our  minds,  made 
enough  of.  The  influence  of  the  impersonal,  matter 
of  fact  actualities  in  the  subject  matter  of  a  work  of 
literature — especially  imaginative  literature — is  enor- 
mous. Today  we  have  partly  forgotten  it  because 
we  are  contemplating  individualities  in  writers  only, 
but  those  individualities  are  the  results  and  resultants 
of  an  inextricable  and  an  interminable  series  of  in- 
fluences or  rather  reactions  arising  from  the  contact 
of  Mind  with  the  world  outside  of  us. 

Taine  is  consumed  with  a  single  thought.  He 
perceives  in  the  varying  panorama  of  literary  activity 
the  interaction  of  a  racial  force  upon  objective  con- 
ditions. He  pays  but  small  attention  to  the  effect 
of  what  is  to  be  written  about  upon  the  writer.  This 
is  a  less  conspicuous  and  grandiose  point  of  view. 
To  see  in  the  climate,  the  ethnology,  the  state  of  civ- 
ilization and  the  mental  preoccupations,  the  formative 
influences  of  literature,  affords  his  penetrative  fancy 
a  broad  and  philosophic  scope. 

In  English  literature  it  is  first  the  analysis  of  the 
Saxon  and  the  Norman,  then  a  description  of  a 
fusing  and  mixing  period  when  the  "New  Tongue" 

[35] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

is  formed.  Then  comes  the  Pagan  Renaissance  with 
the  unbolting  of  the  doors  of  knowledge,  animal  ex- 
cess, and  natural  proclivities,  endowed,  encouraged 
and  elevated.  Within  the  widened  horizon  of 
thought  and  desire,  the  literature  of  Elizabeth  raises 
its  virile  and  multitudinous  beauties. 

Then  follows  the  Christian  Renaissance  with  a 
serious  morality,  sturdy  convictions,  enduring  hopes 
and  intrepid  resistance,  and  its  literature,  born  of  its 
spirit  and  the  new  social  conditions,  is  polemic,  vivid 
with  religious  enthusiasm  and  exaltation.  Then  the 
Restoration  with  its  violent  reaction,  its  unbridled 
license,  its  incessant  and  boisterous  parade  of  lust,  and 
the  classic  age,  conceived  within  it,  rises  hollow,  ele- 
gant, veneered  with  fine  phrases  and  shining  with  a 
kind  of  parlor  wit,  while  the  modern  period  succeeds, 
variegated,  busy,  arduous,  and  involved. 

As  M.  Albert  has  said,  "la  literature  du  XIXe 
siecle  offre  un  aspect  de  confusion,  de  desordre, 
d'intemperance,  qui  trouble.  Si  Ton  penetre  dan  la 
detail,  on  est  frappe  de  1'intensite  de  vie,  de  Torig- 
Jnalite,  de  la  variete." 

Taine  exerts  his  copious  and  exhilarating  power  of 
language  to  gauge  and  draw  and  paint  these  differ- 
ences in  men  and  ages ;  he  is  careful  to  emphasize  the 
contrast  between  the  precision,  logicalness,  and  con- 

[36] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

secutive  regularity  of  a  French  mind  and  the  ampli- 
tude imaginativeness  and  interior  complexity  of  the 
Teutonic.  But  nowhere  does  he  hint  at  a  certain 
broader  underlying  basis  of  distinction  between  lit- 
erature and  books  and  writers,  which  is  hidden  in  the 
nature  of  the  stuff  itself  about  which  they  write  or  are 
written.  He  does  not  pause  to  think  it  is  the  matter 
and  its  peculiar  forms  or  aspects  that  becomes  visu- 
alized, incorporated  by  exact  contact  and  sympathy 
with  the  mental  structure  of  the  man  or  race,  that 
helps  to  produce  the  variegation  and  modes,  moods 
and  works  of  literature. 

He  does  indeed  hint  at  an  influence  of  this  sort, 
when  he  enlarges  on  the  effect  of  surroundings,  and 
when  he  tells  us  so  frequently  what  new  results  in  art 
and  literature  appeared,  when  men  turned  their 
mental  eyes  from  the  asceticism  and  pauperized  nar- 
rowness of  the  middle  ages  to  the  rounded  intellec- 
tual and  poetic  fleshliness  of  antiquity.  But  he  does 
not  bring  to  the  surface  the  fact  that  after  all  it  is 
the  subject  matter  that  has  moulded  in  the  course  of 
ages,  literary  feeling  and  invested  minds  with  a  pecu- 
liar atmosphere.  That  it  is  a  fact,  that  if  a  mind  con- 
templates fossils  only,  it  becomes  fossilized;  if  stones, 
petrified ;  if  flowers  verdant  painted  and  fragrant,  that 
to  look  at  Melancholy  induces  sadness  and  sober 

[37] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

tones  of  thought,  to  see  gayety  makes  the  spectator 
gay,  and  to  trace  effects  analytical,  and  that,  however 
begun,  these  objective  influences  having  slowly 
formed  a  type  of  mind  by  acting  upon  some  undif- 
ferentiated  matrix,  it — the  type — has  become  inher- 
ited, and  under  the  agency  of  elections,  fixed, 
strengthened,  and  deepened.  In  the  succeeding 
chapter  on  the  "The  Evolution  of  Literary  Types" 
we  shall  point  this  out  more  systematically,  and  it 
will  assume  that  novelty  which  the  idea  we  think 
possesses,  but  which  fails  to  imbue  its  simple  state- 
ment here  made. 

But  that  the  radical  assumption  of  the  influence 
of  the  subject  matter  upon  writing  or  literary  com- 
position may  be  appreciated,  let  us  ask  "What  is  the 
Language  itself?"  It  is  the  sensuous  image  of 
thought,  therefore  the  single  expression  of  literature. 
But  how  did  language  arise?  Max  Muller  in  his 
profound  work  on  the  "Science  of  Thought"  has 
shown  us.  This  thinker  asserts  that  by  sensations 
we  awaken  our  thought,  which  putting  on  the  aspect 
at  first  of  a  "percept"  becomes  a  "concept,"  when 
instantly  language  announces  the  result.  The  meta- 
physics of  this  operation  need  not  detain  us.  He  says, 
"thought,  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  word,  is  utterly 
impossible  without  the  simultaneous  working  of  sen- 

[38] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

sations,  percepts,  concepts,  and  names,  and  that  in 
reality  the  four  are  inseparable."  "Sensation  being 
shared  in  common  by  men  and  animals  is  often  rep- 
resented as  the  lowest  degree  of  mental  activity.  But 
though  it  may  be  the  lowest,  in  so  far  as  it  is  the  first 
act,  it  is  also  in  another  sense  the  highest,  the  first, 
the  most  important  act.  Instead  of  being  the  most 
easy  to  understand,  it  is  really  the  most  mysterious, 
an  act  which  admits  of  no  simile  or  metaphor  any- 
where, an  act  which  we  cannot  explain  by  any  other, 
an  ultimate  fact  in  our  subjective  world,  as  motion  is 
in  the  objective  world."  We  wish  for  our  purpose 
to  fix  attention  upon  the  fact,  that  sensation  begins 
the  development  of  language,  that  at  the  time 

When  thought  is  speech  and  speech  is  truth, 
the  avenues  of  sense  arouse  thought,  and  there  is  pre- 
cipitated upon  the  mental  image  the  sensuous  particles 
of  sound,  and  language  is  created.  As  the  invisible 
image  of  the  visible  scene  lies  entrapped  in  the  chem- 
ical potentialities  of  the  sensitized  film,  and  emerges 
when  the  developing  solutions  have  poured  over  it, 
and  thrown  down  the  silver  salts  along  all  the  lines 
and  threads  of  light,  and  emerges  too  in  an  ideal 
identity  with  that  original  which  shone  through  the 
objective;  so  the  multitudinous  aspects  and  qualities 
of  external  nature  acting  upon  us  through  the  senses, 

[39] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

arouse  our  minds,  and  weave  upon  the  unfolding 
tables  of  memory  and  psychological  impressibility  the 
patterns  of  vocal  composition  which  are  again  uttered, 
and  remain  as  language. 

Then  upon  the  aspects  of  nature,  succeed  the  as- 
pects of  men  and  the  events  of  history,  and  these 
appeals  stirring  the  mind  evoke  the  literary  powers 
of  races,  in  an  analogous  way  to  that  by  which  lan- 
guage, the  material  of  literature,  has  arisen  itself.  To 
estimate  the  value  of  this  impersonal  factor,  imagine 
a  world  entirely  different  from  ours  while  we  remain 
as  n?e  are;  could  literatures,  exactly  as  we  have  them, 
have  arisen?  New  impacts  upon  sensation,  a  differ- 
ent order  and  combination  of  events  would  have 
elicited  very  different  literary  results.  But  we  are 
ourselves  part  and  parcel  of  this  world,  we  have 
grown  together  in  the  manifold  processes  of  change, 
evolution,  and  adaptation,  and  we  have  become 
so  fitted  to  this  world,  so  knit  into  the  frame 
of  things,  that  our  minds  are  calculated  accord- 
ingly to  express  the  world  itself.  We  have 
become  the  legitimate  expositors  of  the  world, 
and  reveal  its  beauty,  its  intensity,  its  purpose. 
Further  we  have  become  responsive  to  our  common 
nature,  so  that  in  the  path  of  development  and 
through  the  exigencies  of  daily  life,  the  composite 

[40] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

structure  of  society  changes  as  a  unit  in  its  multi 
various  parts,  and  each  element  or  individual  in  that 
society,  having  grown  up  in  it  becomes  its  index  and 
reflects  its  feelings,  its  humour,  its  passion,  its  quantity 
and  quality  of  mind.  Whatever  happens,  whatever 
is  seen  or  heard  or  tasted,  the  externalities  in  their 
entirety,  are  the  provocatives  of  thought. 

The  difference  in  literature,  in  different  ages  is  due 
to  different  external  aspects,  different  impersonal  fac- 
tors in  the  subject  matter  of  literature.  It  is  the  im- 
personal factor  of  the  subject  matter  which  practically 
controls  the  nature  of  our  writings.  To  be  sure  the 
peculiarities  of  the  writer  are  considerable  and  dis- 
tinctive elements,  but  it  is  the  reaction  between  these 
peculiarities  and  the  outside  facts  and  sensations, 
which  give  birth  to  books.  It  is  not  altogether  the 
separative  faculties  of  thought  and  imagination  differ- 
ently combined,  differently  directed,  and  blended, 
and  differently  made,  that  gives  us  literature.  It  is 
also  largely  that  impersonal  factor  of  the  subject  mat- 
ter, which  entering  in  the  mind,  through  sensation, 
or  imaginative  sensation  as  it  were,  in  records  and 
stories,  traditions,  and  history,  elicits  its  response  in 
forms,  and  combinations  of  language. 

Certainly  it  is  a  common  truism  that  the  nature  of 

[41] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

a  topic  prescribes  its  verbal  treatment Tristia 

moestum 

Vultum  verba  decent;  iratum,  pleno  minarum; 
Ludentem,  lasciva;  severum,  seria  dictu. 
Format  enim  natura  prius  nos  intus  ad  omnem 
Fortunarum  habitum ;  juvat,  aut  impellit  ad  iram 
Aut  ad  humum  moerore  gravi  deducit  et  augit 
Post  effert  animi  motus  interprete  lingua. 
So  the  various  aspects  of  a  subject  matter  are  re- 
sponded to  by  the  nature  of  writers,  and  from  the 
very  fact  of  the  existence  of  such  aspects  in  the  sub- 
ject matter  the  peculiarities  of  authors  are  elicited. 

Byron  could  not  have  existed  as  a  literary  product 
if  a  long  antecedent  history  and  a  certain  physiologi- 
cal growth  involving  the  emotions  had  not  been  es- 
tablished in  the  world,  and  in  psychology.  Scott 
reechoes  a  romance,  an  external  group  of  facts,  which 
made  him  the  peculiar  and  delightful  literary  event 
he  really  was.  Keats  has,  to  use  the  words  of  Mr. 
Masson  an  abiding  and  pregnant  sense  of  "sensuous 
impressions,"  and  the  same  discriminating  critic  has 
seen  in  Shelly  the  movements  of  a  spirit  responsive 
to  the  "meteorological"  phases  of  nature.  Words- 
worth was  a  man  calculated  and  educated  to  mirror 
the  spirituality  and  the  realism  of  nature. 

The  personal  element  in  style  is  well  shown  in 
[42] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Prof.  Woodberry's  description  of  the  literary  char- 
acter of  Coleridge,  and  Aubrey  de  Vere,  and  James 
Russell  Lowell.  Of  Coleridge  he  says:  "The  tem- 
perament of  Coleridge  was  one  of  diffused  sensuous- 
ness  physically,  and  of  abnormal  mental  moods — 
moods  of  languor,  collapse,  of  visionary  imaginative 
life,  with  a  night  atmosphere  of  the  spectral,  moonlit, 
swimming,  scarcely  substantial  world ;  and  the  poems 
he  wrote,  which  are  the  contributions  he  made  to  the 
world's  literature,  are  based  on  this  temperament, 
like  some  Fata  Morgana  upon  the  sea ;" 

and  of  Aubrey  de  Vere,  "lyrical  in  verse,  strong  in 
style,  mainly  historical  in  theme,  heroic  or  spiritual 
in  substance,  above  all  placid,  he  stirs  and  tranquil- 
lizes the  soul,  in  the  presence  of  lovely  scenes,  high 
actions  and  those 

Great  ideas  that  man  was  born  to  learn : 
and  its  outlook  is  upon  the  field  of  the  soul,  regen- 
erate, where  suffering  is  remembered  only  through  its 
purification,  blessed  in  issues  of  sweetness,  dignity  and 
peace;** 

and  of  James  Russell  Lowell :  "It  is  a  style  which 
Mr.  Lowell  has  developed  for  himself,  and  is  to  be 
met  with  here  and  there  in  detached  passages  of  his 
earlier  poetry,  but  nowhere  else  is  it  so  even  and  con- 
tinuous as  in  the  odes.  It  is  characterized  by  a 

[43] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

breadth  and  undulation  of  tone,  and  a  purity  hard  to 
describe,  but  these  traits  are  not  of  consequence  in 
comparison  with  the  certainty  with  which,  no  matter 
how  finally  resonant  the  wave  of  sound  may  be,  the 

thought  absorbs  it  and  becomes  itself  vocal  and  musi- 

1»» 
. 

The  beginnings  of  all  literature  are  in  subject  mat- 
ter; change  it,  change  the  process  by  which  it  arose, 
and  literature  is  changed.  Subject  matter  is  the  epi- 
tome of  climate,  place,  and  race,  and  any  radical 
alteration,  any  abolition  of  any  classes  of  Subject 
Matter  will  influence  and  disturb  literature.  If  Mis- 
ery, Sin,  and  Ignorance  are  driven  out  of  the  world, 
if  there  is  any  place  where  they  do  not  exist,  then  at 
that  time  and  in  that  sphere  literature  will  have  lost 
some  of  its  most  penetrating  inspirations — indeed  if 
thoroughly  defined  and  understood  in  their  widest 
and  most  expressive  sense,  their  highest  and  ethereal- 
ized  aspects — without  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery, 
there  will  be  no  literature  whatever,  and  a  state  of 
perfection  will  inaugurate  a  reign  of  feeling  without 
imagery  and  without  ideas; 

where  those  immortal  shapes 
Of  bright  aerial  spirits  live  insphered 
In  regions  mild  of  calm  and  serene  air, 
Above  the  smoke  and  stir  of  this  dim  spot, 
[44] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Which  men  call  earth;  and,  with  low-thoughted 
care 

Confined  and  pester'd  in  this  pinfold  here, 
Strive  to  keep  up  a  frail  and  feverish  being. 

We  find  then  that  the  substance  of  literature  is 
Style,  Treatment,  and  Subject  Matter;  that  in  each 
of  these  there  are  two  elements,  a  personal  and  im- 
personal factor;  in  Style  the  language  of  a  people, 
and  the  author's  use  of  that  language;  in  Treatment 
the  fashion  of  the  day,  and  the  author's  use  of  that 
fashion;  in  Subject  Matter,  the  external  facts  and 
the  author's  subjective  interpretation  or  use  of  them. 


[45] 


CHAPTER  II. 

EVOLUTION  OF  LITERARY  TYPES 

It  has  appeared  probable  to  some  unprejudiced 
and  discriminating  thinkers  that  the  human  race  has 
retrograded  from  a  high  pristine  state,  wherein  it  was 
more  inaccessible  than  at  present  to  the  attacks  of 
vice,  and  more  richly  endowed  with  the  preroga- 
tives of  knowledge.  This  belief  will  generally  be 
treated  as  a  fortuitous  conception  or  a  christian  con- 
ventionality of  thought.  For  most  purposes  of  phil- 
osophic speculation  it  is  best  to  assume  that  man  has 
improved  through  the  long  periods  of  pre-historic  and 
historic  evolution,  and  has  always  been  attended  by 
those  accidents  of  nature  which  make  living  hard,  and 
those  incidents  of  disposition  which  make  living  irreg- 
ular. For  the  evolutionist  and  student  of  progressive 
changes,  man  has  always  lived  in  a  state  of  things 
where  hardship,  experiment,  and  experience  have 
slowly  paved  the  way  to  new  and  better  conditions. 
For  him  indeed ; 

Jovis  malum  virus  serpentibus  addidit  atris, 
Praedarique  lupos  jussit,  pontusque  moveri, 
Mellaque  decussit  foliis,  ignemque  removit, 
Et  passim  rivis  currentia  vina  repressit; 

[46] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

Ut  varias  usus  meditando  extunderet  artes 
Paulatim,  et  sulcis  frumenti  quaereret  herbam; 
Ut  silicis  venis  abstrusum  excuderet  ignem. 

But  it  is  difficult  to  construct,  even  speculatively, 
the  steps  by  which  the  rudest  possible  forms  of  men 
have  risen  to  such  intellectual  and  imaginative  activity 
as  to  produce  a  Plato,  a  Sophocles,  a  Shakespeare,  a 
Goethe,  or  a  Cuvier. 

If  we  are,  upon  the  logical  extremes  assumed  by  an 
Origin  of  Derivation,  to  begin  with  something  like 
a  Hottentot*  or  a  Fuegian,  it  is  a  rather  startling  task 
to  trace  the  procession  of  mental  shapes,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  series  of  modifying  causes  by  which 
this  primordial  type  passes  upward  and  into  the 
divine  lineaments  and  powers  of  the  great  poets,  phil- 
osophers, and  thinkers.  Such  a  task  invincibly  recalls 
the  reasonableness  of  commencing  at  the  top,  in  some 
ideal  creation,  and  allowing  the  facile  force  of  deter- 
ioration to  work  its  defacing,  depleting,  and  deform- 
ing results,  until  we  reach  grovelling  Botocudos  or 
the  senseless  Californian  Indian.  However  that  may 
be,  the  purposes  of  our  inquiry  can  be  satisfied  by 
beginning  far  back  amid  the  first  social  communities 
of  any  race,  whose  mental  proclivities  are  first-rate, 

*En  passant  we  may  remark  that  Sir  Francis  Gallon  has  vindicated  the  claims  of  the 
Hottentot  or  Bushman  to^a  higher  place  in  die  scale  of  intelligence  than_it  has  been  custom- 
ary to  allow  him.  See  "  Inquiry  in  the  Origin  of  the  Human  Faculty." 

[47] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

and  whose  environment  continually  summons  them 
forth  upon  an  ascending  line  of  self-improvement, 
self-culture,  and  self-reliance. 

Sir  Francis  Gallon  awards  the  palm  of  superiority 
to  the  Greeks,  and  perhaps,  viewed  in  the  totality  of 
their  diverse  capabilities  they  deserve  it.  He  says, 
"the  ablest  race  of  whom  history  bears  record,  is 
unquestionably  the  ancient  Greek,  partly  because 
their  masterpieces  in  the  principal  departments  of  in- 
tellectual activity  are  still  unsurpassed,  and  in  many 
respects  unequalled,  and  partly  because  the  popula- 
tion that  gave  birth  to  the  creators  of  those  master- 
pieces was  very  small."* 

Perhaps  we  may  be  able  to  discern  in  these  people 
the  evolution  of  a  literary  type,  and  discern  it  formed, 
as  a  budding  polyp  from  the  tissues  of  its  mother 
colony,  from  the  peculiarities  and  quantity  of  Subject 
Matter.  Not  indeed  that  we  can  disregard  the  men- 
tal construction  of  the  Greek  himself,  but  that  that 
construction  was  in  a  measure  determined  by  events, 
by  the  subject  matter  of  his  thoughts,  by  the  drift  of 
circumstances,  by  the  accumulated  impression  of  in- 
numerable impacts,  acting  through  sensation  upon 
his  conception. 

For  what  has  differentiated  types  and  classes  of 

*Hereditary  Genius.  F.  Gallon,  p.  340. 

[48] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

minds  both  in  races,  and  in  time  but  subject  matter? 
If  monogenism  or  the  theory  of  descent  from  a  single 
pair  of  progenitors,  is  to  control  human  conclusions, 
as  to  our  ethnological  history,  what  other  influence 
but  the  subject  matter  of  thought,  has  parcelled  the 
populations  of  the  world,  so  far  as  their  literary  aspect 
goes,  into  different  word-making  and  book-making 
groups?  Is  it  not  correct  to  affirm  that  the  same 
"variability"  which  the  biologists  find  in  animals  may 
be  found  in  minds,  and  that  as  the  "variability"  of 
an  animal  form  is  perpetuated  when  the  environment 
is  favorable,  and  that  variation  survives  which  is  best 
suited  to  present  circumstances,  to  the  extinction  of 
all  other  variations  not  so  suited,  so  those  variations 
of  mind  as  literary  effects,  survive,  which  respond  to 
the  subject  matter  the  literary  material  at  their  com- 
mand, and  those  which  do  not  dwindle  and  disap- 
pear. 

And  as  "selection,"  in  the  "struggle  for  existence" 
acts  by  promoting  the  continuance  of  those  organic 
varieties  which  can  get  their  living  most  easily,  safely 
and  uniformly,  "selection"  in  the  origin  of  literary 
types  acts  simply  through  the  suppression  of  those 
writers  who  are  not  able  appropriately  to  express  the 
subject  matter  of  a  place  or  time  in  accordance  with 
the  taste  of  that  place  and  time. 

[49] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Practically  there  is  no  such  literary  disaffection, 
no  aberrant  mental  forms.  A  race  in  its  literary  shape 
is  moulded  so  gradually,  the  process  is  so  delicately 
cumulative  that  all  literary  products  are  expressions 
of  the  people  and  the  period,  are  the  summation  of 
the  literary  value  of  the  subject  matter  at  command. 
Latent  peculiarities  of  mind,  or  minds  incipiently  at 
variance  with  the  prevalent  subject  matter  are  not 
developed,  and  therefore  are  not  known,  and  any 
disquieting  or  subversive  force  they  might  have,  is 
eliminated.  But  sharp  abrupt  changes  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  literary  types  may  be  produced  by  the  appear- 
ance of  a  mind  which  completely  and  intimately  re- 
sponds to  a  phase  of  the  subject  matter  which  has  not 
previously  been  expressed.  Even  then,  these  literary 
upheavals  may  be  traced  back  along  some  low  and 
unnoticed  oscillations  in  the  public  mind  which  arose 
from  an  increasing  literary  sense  of  new  values  in  the 
subject  matter.  The  return  of  poetry  to  nature  which 
began  in  English  poetry  after  the  period  of  Pope 
heralded  that  significant  resurrection  of  poetic  images 
and  thought  which  in  Wordsworth  and  the  lake  poets 
seemed  so  revolutionary  (and  momentarily,  was,) 
but  which  soon  took  on  an  expression  of  complete 
harmony  with  the  aroused  sense  in  the  people  of  the 
inspiration  and  beauty  of  nature. 

[50] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man. 
The  scheme  of  thought  then  in  this  inquiry  is  sim- 
ply this :  that  differentiations  of  the  literary  qualities  of 
races,  were  established  by  the  continued  action  of 
subject  matter  exercised  upon  incipient  varietal  liter- 
ary peculiarities,  which  arose,  as  it  were,  spontan- 
eously.    This  action  continued  for  a  long  time  and 
uninterruptedly,  and  assisted  by  the  laws  of  heredity, 
created  literary  types.     Of  course  the  representative 
mind  of  a  race  whether  it  appears  in  literature,  in 
statesmanship,  in  war,  or  in  industries,  is  formed  by 
the  culture  of  those  occupations,  predicaments  and 
discoveries  which  engage  its  attention,  and  are  indeed 
themselves  subject  matter;  its  literary  type  as  a  subor- 
dinate result  is  influenced,  we  claim,  in  a  paramount 
and   determinative   fashion,   by   the    subject  matter 
thus  created. 

Now  what  type  is  represented  in  Greek  literature? 
Is  it  not  the  intellectually  imaginative?  the  combina- 
tion of  distinctness  and  beauty?  At  least  if  we  accept 
the  reports  of  those  apt  and  efficient  observers  and 
critics  who  read  and  feel  the  genius  of  Greek  authors, 
this  epithet  seems  qualitatively  just.  Imagination  and 
intellect  were  theirs,  with  intellect  in  the  ascendancy, 

[51] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

and  gaining  ground,  as  the  years  of  the  Greek  race 
lengthened,  through  its  own  analytical  impulses. 
Imagination  makes  pictures,  and  intellect  defines 
ideas,  reflectively  making  the  pictures  which  imagi- 
nation furnishes  lucid  definite  and  orderly.  Greek 
poetry  is  a  wonderful  gallery  of  pictures,  and  Greek 
composition,  is  the  consummate  expression  of  aes- 
thetic refinement.  The  epic,  the  drama,  and  the  sys- 
tematized music  of  poetic  measures  came  from 
Greece. 

Says  Colonel  Mure,*  "from  Olympus  down  to 
the  workshop  or  the  sheepfold,  from  Jove  and  Apollo 
to  the  wandering  mendicant,  every  rank  and  degree 
of  the  Greek  community  divine  or  human,  had  its 
own  proper  allotment  of  poetical  celebration.  The 
gods  had  their  hymns,  nomes,  peans,  dithyrambs; 
great  men  had  their  encomia  and  epinikia ;  the  votar- 
ies of  pleasure  their  erotica  and  symposiaca;  the 
mourner  his  threnodia  and  elegies;  the  vine-dresser 
had  his  epilenia;  the  herdsmen  their  bucolica;  even 
the  beggar  his  eiresione  and  chelidonisma." 

Must  there  not  have  been  imagination  amongst 
such  people?  Could  such  a  wealth  of  poetic  flowers 
have  sprung  upon  a  soil  not  enriched  with  the  ger- 
minating warmth  of  imagination? 

•Quoted  by  Symonds,  Studies  of  the  Greek  Poet*. 

[52] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

And  as  to  intellect,  wherein  lies  the  power  and  the 
thought  of  definition,  Mr.  Symonds  says,  "the  Greek 
genius  was  endowed  with  the  faculty  of  distinguish- 
ing, differentiating,  vitalizing  what  the  Oriental 
nations  left  hazy  and  confused  and  inert.  Therefore 
with  the  very  earliest  stirrings  of  conscious  art  in 
Greece  we  remark  a  powerful  specializing  tendency. 
Articulation  succeeds  to  mere  interjectional  utterance. 
Separate  forms  of  music  and  of  metre  are  devoted, 
with  the  unerring  instinct  of  a  truly  aesthetic  race,  to 
the  expression  of  the  several  moods  and  passions  of 
the  soul."  And  a  more  coldly  scientific  estimate  of 
their  intellectual  grade  is  given  by  Sir  Francis  Gallon, 
who  says,*  "that  the  average  ability  of  the  Athenian 
race  is,  on  the  lowest  possible  estimate,  very  nearly 
two  grades  higher  than  our  own,  that  is  about  as 
much  as  our  race  is  above  that  of  the  African 
negro,  "~\ 

Nothing  could  be  more  pervasive  in  Greek  art  than 
its  intellectual  delicacy.  Says  Taine,  "c*  est  toujours 
1'esprit  fin,  adroit,  ingenieux,  qui  se  manifeste."  Art 
in  Greece  became  sculpture;  it  was  not  music  or 
painting.  But  art  is  itself  the  expression  of  imagina- 
tion, and  so  Greek  art  is  the  refined  control  of  imagi- 

*Hereditary  Genius,  Sir  F.  Gallon,  p.  342. 

fThe  expostulation  of  Mr.  Mahaff y  in  his  Rambles  and  Studies  in  Greece  may  here 
be  recalled.  He  says,  "  A  long  and  careful  survey  of  the  extant  literature  of  ancient 
Greece  has  convinced  me  that  the  pictures  usually  drawn  of  the  old  Greeks  are  idealized, 
and  that  the  real  people  were  of  a  very  different,  if  you  please,  of  a  much  lower  type." 

[53] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

nation  by  intellect.  Under  a  clear  infinite  atmos- 
phere, a  multitude  of  distinct  scenic  incidents  in  the 
landscape  became  clear,  and  sharpened  into  precision 
and  fixity.  Under  an  abounding  animal  impulse  of 
health  and  the  love  of  health,  fostered  by  a  salubrious 
climate,  exercise  and  athletic  grace  became  the 
divinely  appointed  regimen  of  handsome  youth.  The 
result  was  perfection  of  form  which  increasingly  stim- 
ulated the  appetite  and  sense  of  form,  and  heightened 
mere  physical  results  to  the  last  attainable  excellence 
of  aesthetic  design.  This  definition  and  exquisitely 
perfected  cleanness  and  brightness  of  outline  turned 
the  Greek  mind  to  sculpture.  And  their  literary  re- 
sults were  also  sculpturesque. 

Says  Symonds,  "The  national  games,  the  religious 
pageants,  the  theatrical  shows,  and  the  gymnastic 
exercises  of  the  Greeks  were  sculpturesque.  The 
conditions  of  their  speculative  thought  in  the  first 
dawn  of  civilized  self-consciousness,  when  spiritual 
energy  was  still  conceived  as  incarnate  only  in  a  form 
of  flesh,  and  the  soul  was  inseparable  from  the  body 
except  by  an  unfamiliar  process  of  analysis,  harmon- 
ized with  the  art  which  interprets  the  mind  in  all  its 
movements  by  the  features  and  the  limbs. 

Their  careful  choice  of  distinct  motives  in  poetry, 
their  appeal  in  all  imaginative  work  to  the  inner  eye 

[54] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

that  sees,  no  less  than  to  the  sympathies  which  thrill, 
their  abstinence  from  description  of  landscape  and 
analyses  of  emotion,  their  clear  and  massive  character 
delineation  point  to  the  same  conclusion.  Every 
thing  tends  to  confirm  the  original  perception  that  the 
simplicity  of  form,  the  purity  of  design,  the  self  re- 
straint and  the  parsimony,  both  of  expression  and 
material,  imposed  by  sculpture  on  the  artist  were 
observed  as  laws  by  the  Greeks  in  their  mental  activ- 
ity, and  more  especially  in  their  arts.  It  is  this  which 
differentiates  them  from  the  romantic  nations."  Greek 
literature  is  then  an  illustration  of  intellect  and  imagi- 
nation mingling  together  in  verbal  forms.  And  what 
was  the  subject  matter? 

How  varied  rich  and  graphic  was  the  subject  mat- 
ter of  Greek  literature!  In  the  very  dawn  of  that 
wonderful  ethnic  growth  we  encounter  an  accumu- 
lated wealth  of  legendary  anecdote,  amidst  which  the 
towering  and  sky-enveloped  forms  of  Gods  mingle 
upon  the  platform  of  human  action  with  the  passions 
and  achievements  of  heroes.  How  viril  and  stren- 
uous and  picturesque  are  the  stories!  The  fused 
outlines  of  history  yield  in  the  solvents  of  imagination 
and  romance,  and  portentous  deeds,  transcending  all 
earthly  powers,  are  woven  into  a  tradition  where  the 
struggles  of  passion  convulse  the  heavens  and  the 

[55] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

earth.  It  is  as  if  we  witnessed  the  first  processes  of  a 
segregation  of  men  from  gods ;  when  the  process  has 
only  so  far  advanced  as  to  have  established  a  home 
for  each,  but  not  so  far  advanced  as  to  divide  their 
mingled  interests. 

And  there  is  intellectual  coherence  in  these  tales, 
and  a  deep  strain  of  psychological  impressiveness  and 
meaning.  Imagination  plays  in  them  with  a  beauti- 
ful and  fertile  spontaneity,  and  intellect  endows  them 
with  a  subtle  discrimination,  so  that  they  make  poems 
and  teach  lessons,  so  that  they  fix  the  eye  of  the  artist 
and  inform  the  thinker.  They  are  excellent  composi- 
tions and  where  they  become  grotesque  and  out- 
rageous, as  the  early  Gaean  myths,  the  sewing  of 
Dionysius  in  the  thigh  of  Jupiter,  or  the  love  of 
Pasiphaea  for  a  bull,  they  quickly  escape  from  this 
primitive  formlessness,  and  hide  it  in  a  new  growth 
of  stimulating  invention.  The  Trojan  stories,  the 
Pelopid  genealogy,  the  Argonautic  enterprise,  are 
examples  of  vivid  anecdote  enclosing  a  moral  inten- 
tion. Of  the  whole  treasury  of  Grecian  legend, 
Grote  says,  "these  myths  or  current  stories,  the  spon- 
taneous and  earliest  growth  of  the  Grecian  mind, 
constituted  at  the  same  time  the  entire  intellectual 
stock  of  the  age  to  which  they  belonged. 

[56] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

They  are  the  common  root  of  all  those  ramifica- 
tions into  which  the  mental  activity  of  the  Greek 
subsequently  diverged;  containing  as  it  were,  the 
preface  and  germ  of  the  positive  history  and  philos- 
ophy, the  dogmatic  theology,  and  the  professed 
romance,  which  we  shall  hereafter  trace,  each  in  its 
separate  development.  They  furnished  aliment  to 
the  curiosity,  and  solution  to  the  vague  doubts  and 
aspirations  of  the  age;  they  explained  the  origin  of 
those  customs  and  standing  peculiarities  with  which 
men  were  familiar;  they  impressed  moral  lessons, 
awakened  patriotic  sympathy,  and  exhibited  in  de- 
tail the  shadowy,  but  anxious  presentiments  of  the 
vulgar,  as  to  the  agency  of  the  gods;  moreover  they 
satisfied  that  craving  for  adventure,  and  appetite  for 
the  marvelous  which  has,  in  modern  times,  become 
the  province  of  fiction  proper." 

In  this  great  mass  of  interwoven  narrative,  with  its 
episodes  and  accidents,  we  find  a  mingling  of  literary 
elements,  in  which  the  intellectually  imaginative  is 
predominant  but  not  constant.  There  is  besides  it, 
much  that  is  barbaric,  prodigious,  vulgarly  sensible 
and  sensuous,  the  inchoate  clamor  of  a  juvenile  fancy 
for  monstrous  facts  and  momentous  agents,  but  every- 
where in  it  is  alertness  of  mind  in  invention,  and  the 
invention  lends  itself  readily  to  intellectual  and  imag- 

[57] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

inative  treatment;  says  Symonds,  "Viewed  even  as  a 
Pantheon,  reduced  to  rule  and  order  by  subsequent 
reflection,  Greek  mythology  is,  therefore,  a  mass  of 
the  most  heterogeneous  materials.  Side  by  side  with 
some  of  the  sublimest  and  most  beautiful  conceptions 
which  the  mind  has  ever  produced  we  find  in  it  much 
that  is  absurd  and  trivial  and  revolting.  Different 
ages  and  conditions  of  thought  have  left  their  pro- 
ducts embedded  in  its  strange  conglomerate.  While 
it  contains  fragments  of  fossilized  stories,  the  meaning 
of  which  has  either  been  misunderstood,  or  can  only 
be  explained  by  reference  to  barbaric  custom,  it  also 
contains,  emergent  from  the  rest,  and  towering  above 
the  rubbish,  the  serene  forms  of  the  Olympians. 
Those  furnish  the  vital  and  important  elements  of 
Greek  mythology.  To  perfect  them  was  the  work 
of  poets  and  sculptors  in  the  brief  blooming  time  of 
Hellas." 

It  was  this  aspect  of  their  subject  matter  that  the 
Greek  literary  variations  of  mind  progressively  assimi- 
lated, recreated,  and  published.  The  Hesiod  the- 
ogony  was  a  believing  chronicle  and  record  of  those 
mythic  episodes,  and  that  cosmogony  which  the 
Greek  fancy  had  grouped  together  around  some  pos- 
sible, but  now  undeterminable  nucleus  of  history  or 
tradition,  and  which  became  the  nutriment  of  their 

[58] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

religious  nature.  The  Homeric  poems  seized  the 
Trojan  myth  and  recreated  it,  into  an  imaginative 
epic,  whose  intellectual  power  lies  in  its  spontaneous 
effectiveness,  directness  and  pictorial  beauty.  Dis- 
crimination, a  bright  mentality,  and  lofty  composition 
characterize  its  sonorous  and  melodic  lines.  It  lived 
in  Grecian  literature  satisfying  the  literary  taste  of  the 
Greeks  who  lived  after  it,  and  who  retained  it  as  the 
most  venerated  exposition  of  their  literary  feeling. 

But  the  process  of  literary  differentiation  contin- 
ued, by  an  increasing  sympathy  with  the  intellectual 
elements  of  the  mythopoeic  subject  matter,  and  with 
it  a  more  exalted  grandiose  imaginative  treatment. 
Grote  remarks,  "The  expansive  force  of  Grecian  in- 
tellect itself  was  a  quality  in  which  this  remarkable 
people  stand  distinguished  from  all  their  neighbors 
and  contemporaries.  Most,  if  not  all  nations  have 
had  myths,  but  no  nation  except  the  Greeks,  have 
imparted  to  them  immortal  charm  and  universal  inter- 
est :  and  the  same  mental  capacities,  which  raised  the 
great  men  of  the  poetic  age  to  this  exalted  level,  also 
pushed  forward  their  successors  to  outgrow  the  early 
faith  in  which  the  myths  had  been  generated  and 
accredited." 

The  less  intellectually  elevating,  the  less  imagina- 
tively impressive  elements  of  the  myths  were  pro- 

[59] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

gressively  abandoned,  modified  or  recast.  Grote  says 
of  Pindar  that  he  "repudiates  some  stories,  and  trans- 
forms others  because  they  are  inconsistent  with  his 
conceptions  of  the  Gods."  Of  Aeschylus  and  Soph- 
ocles he  says,  "both  of  them  exalted  rather  than  low- 
ered the  dignity  of  the  mythical  world,  as  something 
divine  and  heroic  rather  than  human,"  and  he  further 
says  that  the  great  poets  and  logographers  aided  each 
other  in  this  exaltation  of  the  popular  mythology. 
"Their  grand  object  was,  to  cast  the  myths  into  a 
continuous  readable  series,  and  they  were  in  conse- 
quence compelled  to  make  selections  between  incon- 
sistent or  contradictory  narratives ;  to  reject  some  nar- 
ratives as  false,  and  to  receive  others  as  true.  But 
their  preference  was  determined  more  by  their  sen- 
timents as  to  what  was  appropriate  than  by  any 
pretended  historical  test." 

This  assimilation  of  the  intellectually  imaginative 
in  the  subject  matter  leads  to  increasing  intellectual 
variations  of  the  Greek  mind,  until  we  reach  the 
period  of  philosophy  and  research  when  the  historical 
sense  is  developed,  and  the  mind  interests  itself  more 
and  more  with  ideas  and  the  interpretation  and  dis- 
cussion of  authentic  facts;  when  indeed  its  intellec- 
tual aspect  is  its  most  significant  aspect.  But  even 

[60] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

then  in  Plato  and  Aristotle,  the  energizing  influence 
of  imagination  seems  a  necessary  incident  and  in  all 
valuable  intellectual  exercise  the  activity  of  the  im- 
agination seems  a  necessary  incident.  Grote 
says,  "the  transition  of  the  Greek  mind  from 
its  poetical  to  its  comparatively  positive  state 
was  self-operated,  accomplished  by  its  own  in- 
herent expansive  force — aided  indeed;  but  by  no 
means  either  impressed  or  provoked,  from  without. 

From  the  poetry  of  Homer  to  the  history  of 
Thucydides  and  the  philosophy  of  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle was  a  prodigious  step,  but  it  was  the  nature 
growth  of  the  Hellenic  youth  into  an  Hellenic  man." 

This  last  sentence  might  be  regarded  as  a  very 
direct  denial  of  the  positions  assumed  here,  that  the 
elements  of  the  subject  matter  are  influential  factors  in 
the  literary  growth  of  a  race.  But  if  we  concede  that 
when  the  incipient  varietal  literary  impulses  in  any 
class  of  minds  have  become  so  strengthened  through 
the  evocative  action  of  a  certain  quality  of  subject 
matter,  that  they  may  then  continue  by  an  automatic 
action  of  growth  we  do  not  seem  so  seriously  at  fault. 
For  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  the  discussion  of 
the  Substance  of  Literature,  the  factors  of  Subject 
Matter,  as  with  style  and  treatment,  are  regarded  as 
consisting  of  two  parts,  the  impersonal  and  personal, 

[61] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

or  "the  external  facts  and  the  author's  subjective 
interpretation  or  use  of  them." 

Had  not  the  Greeks  been  provided  with  a  wide 
and  deep  ocean  of  material  of  a  distinctively  imagina- 
tive, and,  in  its  latent  capability,  intellectual  nature, 
the  glorious  course  of  Greek  literature  and  Greek  art 
would  have  been  quite  different.  The  responses  of 
creative  and  intellectually  made  minds  to  an  imagi- 
native and  intellectual  subject  matter  effectively 
strengthened  the  former  quality  and  elicited  more 
conspicuously  the  latter.  The  process  started,  the 
imaginative  sections  of  literature  receded  in  import- 
ance, and  the  intellectual  exercises  of  the  mind  be- 
came overbearing  and  exclusive. 

Whether  primarily  the  mythical  world  of  Greece 
was  entirely  due  to  the  Greek  mind,  as  it  developed, 
cannot  be  safely  discussed.  It  does  not  admit  of  a 
correct,  or  at  least  a  demonstrably  correct  conclusion. 
As  a  secondary  fact  which  satisfies  our  inquiry  en- 
tirely here,  this  subject  matter,  however  it  arose,  seems 
to  have  formed  the  subsequent  Grecian  mind  and  at 
least  hastened  and  aided  its  development  into  a  char- 
acter which  was  consistent  with  itself,  and  which 
harmonized  also  with  de  facto  elements  of  the  subject 
matter,  which  it  used,  and  by  which  it  was  nurtured. 

If  we  look  back  further  and  examine  the  causes  or 

[62] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

the  sources  which  have  raised,  and  whence  this  re- 
markable accumulations  of  legends,  myths,  stories, 
and  persons  came,  and  if  we  still  hold  on  to  the  direo; 
live  principle  that  it  is  a  primitive  evolution  from 
subject  matter,  we  are  met  with  plain  difficulties.  In 
the  first  place  to  account  for  the  mythopoeic  fertil- 
ity of  the  Greeks  we  have  at  the  hands  of  scholars  a 
number  of  explanations.  Mr.  Symonds  has  reviewed 
them,  and  Mr.  Grote  in  his  masterful  discussion  of 
the  same  topic  in  the  first  volume  of  his  History  of 
Greece  has  much  more  strikingly  treated  the  same 
on  narrower  lines. 

Mr.  Symonds  enumerates  the  various  hypotheses 
which  have  been  advanced  to  account  for  the  re- 
markable stories  of  anecdote  and  marvels,  which 
furnished  Greece  with  the  subject  matter  of  poetry 
for  ten  centuries.  First  we  are  given  Grote's  system, 
which  is  to  regard  them  as  an  inexplicable  mass  of 
legends,  made  and  believed  in  as  the  product  of  a 
myth  making  and  a  myth  realizing  mind ;  second  that 
they  are  a  "degradation  of  primitive  truth,  revealed 
to  mankind  by  God."  Third  that  they  are  the  cre- 
ations of  priests  and  informed  leaders  of  action  and 
opinion,  for  the  satisfaction  of  less  advanced  minds, 
in  short  for  the  ignorant  people.  Fourth  to  assume 
an  historical  basis,  a  factual  nucleus,  now  covered  and 

[63] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

hidden  by  later  growths  of  fiction  invented  or  im- 
agined. Fifth,  fetichism.  Sixth  the  linguistic  method 
of  Max  Mueller  by  which  words  given  to  things  have 
reacted  on  those  who  employ  them,  and,  through 
first,  a  latent  suggestiveness  primarily  hidden  within 
them  when  first  used,  led  the  human  mind  at  that 
early  day  on  into  a  maze  of  congenial  dreams  and 
blunders;  second  through  a  loss  of  their  original  ap- 
plication in  history,  led  to  forced  assumptions,  which 
attached  themselves  to  words  in  the  form  of  long  and 
complex  narrations.  Seventh,  the  Solar  theory  by 
which  nearly  all  mythology  becomes  the  repetition 
of  the  history  of  the  seasons  and  its  endless  variations 
encircle  and  move  around  the  single  astronomical  fact 
of  the  Sun's  rising  and  setting,  and  of  his  progress  up 
and  down  the  heavens,  with  the  revolution  of  the 
secular  year. 

Mr.  Symonds,  however,  himself  is  disposed  to  be- 
lieve that  in  that  early  day  "there  was  no  check  laid 
upon  fancy,  because  nothing  as  yet  was  conceived 
as  thought,  but  everything  existed  as  sensation.  In 
this  infancy  the  nation  told  itself  stories,  and  believed 
in  them.  The  same  faculties  of  the  mind,  which 
afterwards  gave  birth  to  poetry  and  theology,  phil- 
osophy and  state-craft,  science,  and  history,  were 
now  so  ill-defined,  and  merely  germinal  that  they 

[64] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

produced  but  fables.  Yet  these  faculties  were  vig- 
orous and  vivid.  The  fables  they  produced  were 
infinite  in  number  and  variety,  beautiful,  and  so  preg- 
nant with  the  thought  under  the  guise  of  fancy  that 
long  centuries  scarcely  sufficed  for  disengaging  all 
that  they  contained." 

But  in  such  a  view  it  might  seem  that  subject  mat- 
ter is  abandoned.  These  early  literary  creations  were 
born,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  interstitial  endowment 
of  the  ^ind  of  mind  they  sprang  from. 

Where  was  subject  matter  when  the  creating  mind, 
the  informing  and  transmuting  mind  looked  out  upon 
the  fresh  earth?  What  influences  played  then  upon 
it,  by  which  its  thought  was  swayed  and  prompted, 
and  from  whose  power  it  acquired  distinctiveness, 
distinctness  and  expression?  Upon  the  threshold  of 
the  first  appearances  of  any  form  of  literature,  the 
environment  and  the  occupation  of  a  race  is  its  sub- 
ject matter ;  Us  place  and  its  n>or£.  There  is  nothing 
else.  But  how  quickly  in  the  rapid  movement  of 
days,  events  transpire,  transitions  take  place,  and  the 
inevitable  drama  of  life  is  enacted. 

How  rapidly  the  phenomena  of  nature  appeals  to 
the  unfolding  senses,  and  through  the  avenues  of  sen- 
sation arouse  and  instruct  the  mind!  With  a  stock 
of  impressions  accumulated,  with  a  line  of  recalled 

[65] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

events,  with  a  series  of  experienced  emotions  wrought 
within  the  heart  by  the  contact  and  appeal  of  other 
men  the  course  of  literature  begins.  We  have  said 
that  the  "representative  mind  of  a  race  is  formed  by 
the  culture  of  those  occupations,  predicaments  and 
discoveries  which  engage  its  attention,  and  are  indeed 
themselves  subject  matter."  What  were  the  occu- 
pations, predicaments,  and  discoveries  of  the  early 
Greeks — what  was  their  place  and  work? 

The  place  was  the  irregular  and  diversified  neigh- 
borhood of  the  Aegean  Sea.  This  region  is  varied 
by  the  presence  of  all  the  physical  constants  of  geo- 
graphy, and  was  visited  by  all  the  incidents  and 
effects  of  climatal  caprice.  Islands  and  peninsulas, 
mountains  and  valleys,  streams  and  lakes,  the  wooded 
glade  of  Boetia,  its  fertile  plains  and  swiftly  flowing 
and  broken  waters,  the  hard  and  inhospitable  soil 
of  Attica,  the  lofty  ridges  of  Arcadia,  the  fruitful 
plain  of  Sparta,  the  mountain  locked  and  ravine 
threaded  approaches  of  Parnassus,  were  combined, 
and  impressed  the  early  Greek  with  a  multiform 
natural  imagery,  and  revealed  in  endless  combina- 
tions atmospheric  effects,  whose  picturesqueness  in- 
sensibly elevated  and  delighted  his  mind.  A  clear 
atmosphere  brought  to  his  eye  the  interlined  fre- 
quency of  cape  upon  cape,  bay  upon  bay,  island 

[66] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

upon  island,  along  the  bending  and  unfolding  shores 
of  his  fatherland.  Mahaffy  remarks  that  "we  know 
the  Greeks  of  all  civilized  people  thought  least  about 
landscape  as  such,  and  neglected  the  picturesque."* 
It  may  have  been  so,  but  there  must  have  been 
subjective  responses  to  these  external  impressions, 
impressions  which  were  in  unison  with  the  most  obvi- 
ous effects  these  same  scenes  would  make  today  upon 
a  modern.  If  there  failed  to  be  developed  a  school 
of  landscape  painting,  in  the  elaborate  and  poetic 
sense  we  are  accustomed  to  regard  that  art,  its 
absence  does  not  so  much  arise  from  obtuseness  and 
insensibility  to  natural  beauty,  as  from  inability  to 
form  or  control  the  sort  of  technique  such  scenes 
require  for  their  portrayal,  or  because  these  aspects 
of  nature  failed  to  predominate  amid  the  epic,  his- 
trionic, and  personal  intensity  of  the  subject  matter 
they  contemplated  and  used  in  literature.  Travellers 
have  paid  their  tribute  to  the  beauty  of  Greece,  and 
though  we  may  suspect  that  the  charm  of  reminis- 
cence, in  the  thoughts  of  its  bewitching  and  storied 
past,  has  shed  perhaps  a  magical  light  over  its  land- 
scape, yet  their  praise  and  enthusiasm  cannot  be  taken 
at  less  than  half  its  literal  sense.* 

*A  History  of  Classical  Greek  Literature.    J.  P.  Mahaffy,  Vol.  I,  p.  244. 

*Humboldt,  in  the  wide  comprehensiveness  of  his  observations,  says  in  his  "Travels, 
to  the  Equinoctial  Regions  of  America";  "if  the  mass  of  light  which  circulates  about  objects 
fatigues  the  external  senses  during  a  part  of  the  day,  the  inhabitant  of  the  southern  climates 
has  his  compensation  in  moral  enjoyment.  A  lucid  clearness  in  the  conceptions,  and  a 
serenity  of  mind,  correspond  with  the  transparency  of  the  surrounding  atmosphere." 

[67] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

About  says,  (Grece  contemporaine)  "mais  cette 
route  est  si  variee  qu,  on  y  marcherait  toute  la  vie 
sans  se  lasser;  tantot  elle  suit  le  versant  d'une  mon- 
tagne  rude  et  escarpee;  tantot  elle  descend  dans  les 
ravines  immenses,  peuples  d'arbres  de  toute  espece 
et  revetus  de  grandes  fleurs  sauvages  que  nos  jardins 
devraient  envier.  Quelques  enormes  figuiers  tordent 
leurs  bras  puissants  au  milieu  des  amandiers  au 
feuillage  grele;  on  rencontre  c.a  et  la  des  Grangers 
d'un  vert  sombre,  des  pins  roussis  par  1'hiver,  des 
cypres  aux  formes  bizarres;  et  d'espace  en  espace, 
le  roi  des  arbres,  le  palmier,  eleve  sa  belle  tete  eche- 
velee.  Dorez  tout  ce  paysage  d'un  large  rayon  de 
soleil ;  semez  partout  des  mines  anciennes  et  modernes, 
des  eglises  sur  tout  les  sommets,  sur  tous  les  versants, 
des  maisons  turques  carrees  comme  des  tours,  cour- 
ronnees  de  terrasses  et  proprement  blanchies  a  la 
chaux,  sur  les  chemins,  de  petites  troupes  d'annes 
portant  des  families  entieres;  dans  les  champs,  des 
troupeaux  de  brebis;  des  bandes  de  chevres  sur  les 
rochers;  ca  et  la  quelques  vaches  maigres,  couchees 
sur  le  ventre,  et  fixant  sur  le  voyageur  leurs  gros  yeux 
etonnees:  et  partout  le  chant  des  alouettes  qui  s'ele- 
vent  dans  1'air  comme  pour  escalader  le  soleil;  par- 
tout  la  bavardage  impertinent  des  merles  qui  se  re- 
jouissent  de  voir  pousser  la  vigne,  et  des  centaines 

[68] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

d'oiseaux  de  toute  sorte,  se  disputant  a  grands  cris 
une  goute  de  rosee  que  la  soleil  a  oublie  de  boire. 
Je  1'  ai  revue  bien  des  fois  cette  route  charmante, 
et  quoiqu,  un  y  trebuche  dans  les  pierres,  qu,  on  y 
glisse  sur  les  rochers,  qu,  on  s'y  baigne  les  pieds  dans 
1'eau  des  misseaux,  je  voudrais  la  parcourrir  encore." 
Mahaffy  says  of  the  Temple  of  Sunium*,  "It  was 
our  good  fortune  to  see  it  in  a  splendid  sunset,  with 
all  the  sea  a  sheet  of  molten  gold,  and  all  the  head- 
lands and  islands  coloured  with  hazy  purple.  The 
mountains  of  Eubaea,  with  their  promontory  of  Ger- 
aestus,  closed  the  view  upon  the  northeast,  but  far 
down  into  the  Aegean  reached  island  after  island, 
as  it  were  striving  to  prolong  a  highway  to  the  holy 
Delos.  The  ancient  Andros,  Terras,  Myconos  were 
there,  but  the  eye  sought  in  vain  for  the  home  of 
Apollo's  shrine — the  smallest,  and  yet  the  greatest 
of  the  group.  The  parallel  chains,  reaching  down 
from  Sunium  itself,  were  hidden  behind  one  another, 
Keos,  Kythnus,  Seriphos  and  Siphnos,  but  left  open 
to  view  the  distant  Melos.  Then  came  a  short  space 
of  open  sea,  due  south,  which  alone  prevented  us 
from  imagining  ourselves  on  some  fair  and  quiet 
island  lake;  and  then  to  the  southwest  we  saw  the 
point  of  Hydria,  the  only  spot  in  all  Hellas  whose 

"Rambles  and  Studies  in  Greece,  J.  P.  Mahaffy. 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

recent  fame  exceeds  the  report  of  ancient  days.  The 
mountains  of  Argolis  lay  behind  Aegina,  and  formed 
with  their  Arcadian  neighbors,  a  solid  background, 
till  the  eye  wandered  round  to  the  Acropolis  of 
Corinth,  hardly  visible  in  the  burning  brightness  of 
the  sun's  decline." 

Those  glimpses  of  Greece,  afforded  us  by  Pau- 
sanias  and  the  fragments  of  Dicaearchus,  convince 
the  reader  of  the  so-to-speak  panoplied  legendary 
coverings  of  Grecian  scenery,  its  varied  charm,  the 
soft,  subtle,  and  enchaining  mythic  spell  which  dwelt 
in  wood,  lake,  stream,  hill  and  plain.  To  quote  a 
passage  from  Mr.  Frazer's  Introduction  to  Pausan- 
ias:  "He  (Pausanias)  remarks  the  bareness  of  the 
Cirrhaean  plain,  the  fertility  of  the  valley  of  the  Pho- 
cian  Cephisus,  the  vineyards  of  Ambrosus,  the  palms 
and  dates  of  Aulis,  the  olive  oil  of  Tithorea  that  was 
sent  to  the  emperor,  the  dikes  that  dammed  off  the 
water  from  the  fields  in  the  marshy  flats  of  Caphyae 
and  Thisbe.  He  mentions  the  various  kinds  of  oaks 
that  grew  in  the  Arcadian  woods,  the  wild  straw- 
berry bushes  of  Mount  Helicon  on  which  the  goats 
browsed,  the  hellebore,  both  black  and  white,  of 
Anticyra,  and  the  berry  of  Ambrosus  which  yielded 
the  crimson  dye."  And  in  all  these  places  dwelt  the 
genius  of  mythology,  with  innumerable  clustering 

[70] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

legends  and  fables,  mingled  with  the  more  strict  and 
forceful  traditions  of  history  and  heroes. 

A  salubrious  and  invigorating  climate — both 
Mahaffy  and  Byron  bear  witness  to  the  peculiar 
wholesomeness  and  purity  of  the  air — enabled  this 
great  race  to  enjoy  the  unbroken  influences  of  an  out- 
door life,  and  assisted  them  in  reaching  physical  per- 
fection. Their  mental  powers  were  thus  fortified 
and  in  the  study  and  admiration  of  themselves,  new 
factors  of  subject  matter  contributed  a  latent  inclina- 
tion to  clearness,  cleanness,  and  acuteness  of  literary 
expression,  as  well  as  of  grand  conceptions  of  the 
prowess  and  splendor  of  strong  men  and  idealized 
men-gods. 

But  in  this  restless  life,  in  the  keen  competition 
between  their  communities,  in  the  sea  faring  and  ad- 
venturesome pursuits*,  in  the  long  process  of  trans- 
migration to  Greece  itself  from  some  remote  ethnic 
centre  of  dispersion,  in  the  genius  of  primitive  agri- 
cultural and  pastoral  life  we  may  suspect  were  to  be 
found  the  influences  of  subject  matter  which  especi- 

*The  earliest  traditional  notices  of  the  social  condition  of  Greece,  after  the  spread  of 
Hellenic  Supremacy,  describe  that  country  as  divided  into  petty  patriarchal  states,  where 
tribes  of  high  spirited  vassals  yielded  a  ready,  but  not  a  servile,  obedience  to  martial  chiefs 
descended  from  the  heroes  under  whose  guidance  their  possessions  had  been  acquired. 
This  state  of  society  was  fostered  by  the  natural  features  of  the  country,  which  marked 
out  the  boundaries  of  the  separate  principalities,  and  interposed  barriers  against  mutual 
encroachment.  Its  full  influence  on  the  language,  as  exemplified  in  the  distinction  and 
cultivation  of  the  dialects,  was  reserved  for  a  later  period.  In  these  early  times  its  bene- 
ficial effects  are  chiefly  perceptible  in  cherishing  the  chivalrous  spirit  which  supplies  materials 
for  epic  minstrelsy,  the  foundation  of  all  primitive  literature. 

Wm.  Mure,  Critical  History  of  the  Language  and  Literature  of  Ancient  Greece  ; 
Vol.  II.  p.  102. 

[71] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ally  trained  and  inspired  their  minds,  which  left 
upon  them  the  traces  of  numerous  and  bold  impres- 
sions, and  stirred  the  depths  of  their  mental  life — 
evoking  with  increasing  vivacity  and  directness  the 
play  of  imagination,  and  shaping  an  esoteric  intellec- 
tual bias  through  a  conflict  with  nature  and  with 
themselves. 

Thucydides  alludes  to  the  free  booting  expedi- 
tions of  the  early  Greeks  which  must  have  led  them 
into  peril  and  exciting  adventure,  and  fed  with  stir- 
ring incidents  the  awakening  instincts  of  dramatic 
narrative.  He  says,  "for  the  Grecians  in  old  time, 
and  of  the  barbarians,  both  those  on  the  continent 
who  lived  near  the  sea,  and  all  who  inhabited  islands, 
after  they  began  to  cross  over  more  commonly  to  one 
another  in  ships,  turned  to  piracy  under  the  conduct 
of  their  most  powerful  men,  with  a  view  both  to  their 
own  gain,  and  to  maintenance  of  the  needy;  and 
falling  upon  towns  that  were  unfortified,  and  inhab- 
ited like  villages,  they  rifled  them,  and  made  most 
of  their  livelihood  by  this  means."  Again  in  that 
expressive  address  of  Nestor  to  Patroclus  at  the  end 
of  the  eleventh  book  of  the  Iliad,  Homer  depicts  the 
vigorous  and  belligerent  activity  of  the  young  Greek 
warriors — 

Would  I  were  strong  and  vigorous  as  of  yore 
[72] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

When  strife  arose  between  our  men  and  those 

Of  Elis,  for  your  oxen  driven  away, 

And,  driving  off  their  beeves  in  turn,  I  slew 

The  Elean  chief,  the  brave  Itymoneus, 

Son  of  Hypirochus!  For  as  he  sought 

To  save  his  herd,  a  javelin  from  my  arm 

Smote  him  the  first  among  his  band.  He  fell; 

His  rustic  followers  fled  on  every  side ; 

And  mighty  was  the  spoil  we  took ;  of  beeves 

We  drove  off  fifty  herds,  as  many  flocks 

Of  sheep,  of  swine  as  many,  and  of  goats 

An  equal  number,  and  of  yellow  studs 

Thrice  fifty : — these  were  mares,  and  by  their  sides 

Ran  many  a  colt.    We  drave  them  all  within 

Neleian  Pylos  in  the  night.  Well  pleased 

Was  Neleus,  that  so  large  a  booty  fell 

To  me,  who  entered  on  the  war  so  young. 

When  morning  brake,  the  herald's  cry  was  heard 

Summoning  all  the  citizens  to  meet, 

To  whom  from  fruitful  Elis  debts  were  due; 

And  then  the  princes  of  the  Pyleans  came, 

And  made  division  of  the  spoil,  for  much 

The  Epeians  owed  us :  we  were  yet  but  few 

In  Pylos,  and  had  suffered  grievously. 

The  mighty  Hercules  in  former  years 

Had  made  us  feel  his  wrath  and  of  our  men 

[73] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Had  slain  the  bravest :  of  the  twelve  who  drew 
Their  birth  from  Neleus,  I  alone  am  left ; 
The  others  fell.    The  Epeians  brazen  mailed 
Saw  this,  delighted,  and  insulted  us 
And  did  us  wrong.  When  now  the  spoil  was 

shared, 

The  old  man  for  himself  reserved  a  herd 
Of  oxen,  and  a  numerous  flock  of  sheep, — 
Three  hundred  with  their  shepherds, — for  to  him 
Large  debts  were  due  in  Elis.  He  had  sent 
Four  horses  once,  of  peerless  speed,  with  cars, 
To  win  a  tripod,  the  appointed  prize, 
Augeias,  king  of  men,  detained  them  there, 
And  sent  the  grieving  charioteer  away. 
My  father,  angered  at  the  monarch's  words 
And  acts,  took  large  amends,  and  gave  the  rest 
To  share  among  the  people,  that  no  one 
Might  leave  the  ground,  defrauded  of  his  right. 
All  this  was  justly  done,  and  we  performed 
Due  sacrifices  to  the  gods,  throughout 
The  city ; — when  the  third  day  came,  and  brought 
The  Epeians  all  at  once,  in  all  their  strength, 
Both  men  on  foot  and  prancing  steeds. 
Came  the  Molians  twain,  well  armed,  with  these 
And  yet  untrained  to  war.    There  is  a  town 
Named  Thryoessa,  on  a  lofty  hill 

[74] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

Far  off  beside  Alpheius,  on  the  edge 

Of  sandy  Pylos.     They  beleaguered  this 

And  sought  to  overthrow  it.    As  they  crossed 

The  plain,  Minerva  came,  a  messenger, 

By  night  from  Mount  Olympus,  bidding  us 

Put  on  our  armor.     Not  unwillingly 

The  Pyleans  mustered,  but  in  eager  haste, 

For  battle.    Yet  did  Neleus  not  consent 

That  I  should  arm  myself, — he  hid  my  steeds : 

For  still  he  deemed  me  inexpert  in  war. 

Yet  even  then,  although  I  fought  in  foot, 

I  won  great  honor  even  among  the  knights ; 

For  so  had  Pallas  favored  me.    A  stream 

Named  Minyeius  pours  into  the  sea, 

Near  to  Arena,  where  the  Pylean  knights 

Waited  the  coming  of  the  holy  morn, 

While  those  who  fought  on  foot  came  thronging  in, 

Thence  with  our  host  complete,  and  all  in  arms 

We  marched,   and  reached  at  noon  the  sacred 

stream 

Alpheius,  where  to  Jove  Omnipotent 
We  offered  chosen  victims,  and  a  bull 
To  the  river-god,  another  to  the  god 
Of  ocean,  and  a  heifer  yet  unbroke 
To  blue-eyed  Pallas ;  Then  we  banqueted, 

[75] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

In  bands,  throughout  the  army,  and  lay  down 
In  armor  by  the  river  side  to  sleep, 
Meantime  the  brave  Epeians  stood  around 
The  city,  resolute  to  lay  it  waste. 
But  first  was  to  be  done  a  mighty  work 
Of  war;  for  as  the  glorious  sun  appeared 
Above  the  earth  we  dashed  against  the  foe, 
Praying  to  Jove  and  Pallas.    When  the  fight 
Between  the  Eleans  and  the  Pylean  host 
Was  just  begun,  I  slew  a  youthful  chief, — 
Mulius, — and  bore  away  his  firm  paced  steeds. 
The  fair  haired  Agamedi,  eldest  born 
Of  King  Augeias'  daughters,  was  his  spouse: 
And  well  to  her  each  healing  herb  was  known 
That  springs  from  the  great  earth.     As  he  drew 

near, 

I  smote  him  with  my  brazen  lance :  he  fell 
To  earth :  I  sprang  into  his  car,  and  stood 
Among  the  foremost  warriors :  while  around, 
The  brave  Epeians,  as  they  saw  him  fall, — 
The  leader  of  their  knights,  their  mightiest 
In  battle, — turned  and,  panic  stricken,  fled, 
Each  his  own  way.    I  followed  on  their  flight 
Like  a  black  tempest,  fifty  cars  I  took, 
And  from  each  car  I  dashed  two  warriors  down 
Pierced  by  my  spear. 

[76] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

Thus  we  surmise  that  place  and  occupation 
brought  to  the  Greeks  the  scenes  and  incidents,  the 
contrasts  of  situation,  the  heroics  of  early  struggle 
with  invaders,  and  with  the  elements  of  the  world, 
the  more  otiose  and  halcyon  intervals  of  direct  sub- 
jection to  nature  in  quiet  retreats  of  bucolic  happiness ; 
brought  all,  that  resting  in  memory  awakened  the 
mysterious  course  of  his  mental  growth,  and  made 
its  fruitage  an  unsurpassingly  expressive  language,  and 
an  intellectual  and  imaginative  literature. 

There  was  no  doubt  a  Theban  Siege,  an  Argon- 
autic  expedition,  a  Trojan  conflict,  an  Heracleian  cru- 
sade, a  Cretan  forfeiture;  and  if  poetry  threw  the 
veil  of  its  hallucinations  and  imagery  over  these  events, 
it  was  because  the  minds  which  idealized  and  mag- 
nified them,  had  themselves  been  brought  into  a  con- 
dition of  imaginative  vigor  and  bold  conjecture  by  the 
aspect  of  the  subject  matter  of  thought  and  experi- 
ence, which  was  the  history  of  their  restless  life,  the 
notice  of  the  strong  natures  which  predominated 
amongst  them,  and  the  effects  of  the  multitudinous 
natural  phenomena  they  saw  and  contemplated. 

Had  the  same  Greeks  mind  whose  development 
in  the  peninsular  of  Greece,  along  the  coasts  of  Asia 
Minor,  and  in  the  islands  of  the  Grecian  Archipel- 

[77] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ago,  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  human  history,  been 
placed  upon  a  boundless  plain  like  the  steppes  of 
Asia,  or  the  pampas  of  South  America,  and  had  it 
been  subjected  to  climatic  severities  which  curtail  and 
impede  life;  had  the  sea  and  its  notable  aspects  been 
never  seen  by  them,  and  the  summits  of  mountains, 
printed  on  morning  and  evening  skies,  never  been 
before  their  eyes,  what  literary  treasures  of  intellec- 
tual imaginativeness  would  have  been  created,  amidst 
unpropitious  surroundings  and  in  the  dearth  of  all 
subject  matter  exhilirating  and  varied? 

The  mind  would  have  lapsed,  from  the  disuse  of 
its  higher  qualities,  or  produced  a  poor  counterpart 
of  that  excellent  and  crowded  literature,  which  has 
become  the  synonym  of  mental  vigor.  The  problem 
of  existence  itself,  the  phases  of  life  would  have 
seemed  more  simple,  less  baffling  and  suggestive. 
The  chronicles  of  the  people  would  have  been  mo- 
notonous, arid  and  circumscribed,  and  while  a  study 
of  the  skies  might  have  prevailed,  and  a  possibly  sub- 
lime conception  of  an  overruling  Providence  been 
developed,  while  a  pleasant  poetry  and  natural  phil- 
osophy might  have  arisen,  the  brilliancy,  the  intensity, 
the  consummate  art,  the  poetic  richness  of  Greek  liter- 
ature, it  seems  to  me,  never  could  have  been  engen- 

[78] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

dered  in  the  absence  of  a  favorable  stimulating  sub- 
ject matter,  amidst  unpropitious  physical  accompani- 
ments. 

An  illustration  of  the  diverse  results  in  intellectual 
activity  arising  from  different  habits  of  life,  may  be 
taken  quite  appositely  from  the  apparently  contrasted 
mental  fancies  of  the  Pelasgic  and  Thracian  races, 
both  themselves  ethnic  elements  in  the  Grecian  type. 
Says  Mahaffy,  "with  the  Pelasgi  we  are  not  much 
concerned.  They  were  great  builders  and  great  re- 
claimers of  land.  They  settled  all  over  Greece,  and 
especially  in  such  rich  plains  as  those  of  Thessaly  and 
Argos.  But  their  literary  character  is  nowhere  at- 
tested. Nor  have  we  remaining  any  certain  trace  of 
their  language,  save  the  words  Argos  and  Larissa, 
which  point  to  these  very  tastes.  They  seem  to  have 
been  a  peace  loving,  quiet  people;  they  must  have 
been  a  settled  and  agricultural  race;  opposed  to  the 
roving  pirates  whom  they  doubtless  dreaded." 

The  legends  about  the  Thracians  are  of  quite  a 
different  order.  This  remarkable  people  appear  from 
the  notices  of  the  Iliad  to  have  been  allied  rather  to 

"Col.  Mure  has  said  something  quite  similar  to  all  this,  but  has  also  emphasized  the 
qualitative  importance  of  the  Grecian  genius  itself.  He  says :  'Had  the  Hellenic  race,  in  the 
course  of  its  early  migrations,  fixed  its  abode  among  the  wilds  of  Scythia,  we  might  at  this 
day  have  been  under  as  little  obligation  to  its  artists  or  authors  as  to  those  of  the  Tartar  tribes 
who  now  inhabit  the  same  regions.  Had  Greece,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  vicissitudes  of 
human  settlement,  fallen  to  the  lot  of  a  swarm  of  Huns,  centuries  of  brilliant  sun  and 
balmy  air.  would  hardly  have  infused  into  them  the  spirit  of  Homer  or  Phidias." 
Critical  History,  &c.,  &c. 

[79] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

the  Phrygians,  than  to  the  western  Greeks;  The 
Phrygians  have  been  proved,  from  the  extant  words 
of  the  language  to  be  not  only  Aryans,  but  Aryans 
of  the  European  branch,  and  thus  we  can  conceive 
an  early  culture  among  the  great  Phrygio-Thracian 
tribes  extending  to  the  borders  of  Thessaly. 

These  singers  were  especially  devoted  to  the  wor- 
ship of  the  muses — three  Goddesses,  who  are  always 
associated  with  wells  and  water  springs,  and  who 
were  the  special  patronesses  and  inspirers  of  poetry. 
There  are  traces  of  these  Thracian  bards  down 
through  the  mountains  of  Phocis  to  Delphi,  and 
round  about  Parnassus;  and  still  more  certainly  are 
they  (and  with  them  the  worship  of  the  Muses) 
associated  with  the  northern  slopes  of  Helicon.  There 
is  no  range  through  all  Greece  so  rich  in  springs  and 
tumbling  brooks  as  the  northern  slopes  of  Helicon, 
and  men  might  well  imagine  it  a  favorite  abode  of 
goddesses,  who  loved  this  most  speaking  voice  in 
nature.  It  is  here  that  the  author  of  the  Theogony, 
ascribed  to  Hesiod — possibly  Hesiod  himself — fixes 
their  abode,  when  he  calls  them  to  come  from  Pieria 
at  the  opening  of  his  didactic  poem. 

Attic  legends  seem  to  indicate  that  the  Thracians 
were  not  mere  singers,  and  that  they  sought  to  ex- 

[80] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

tend  their  influence  still  further.  The  legend  of  the 
war  of  Eumolpus,  the  Thracian  warrior,  king  and 
bard,  against  Erectheus,  king  of  Athens,  implies  that 
the  Thracians  extended  their  power  from  the  slopes 
of  Helicon,  across  the  glades  and  gorges  of  Cithaerin 
to  its  last  spur — the  citadel  of  Eleusis." 

The  Pelasgig  environment  and  occupations  were 
narcotic  and  indulgent,  less  stimulating  than  the 
wilder,  freer,  more  dangerous  life  of  the  Thracians, 
and  to  the  Thracian  may  very  probably  be  traced  the 
myths  which  form  the  subject  matter  of  Greek  imag- 
inative writing  for  six  centuries.  Greek  literature  was 
itself  a  plant  of  natural  and  deliberate  growth.  Ma- 
haffy  tells  us  "everywhere  in  the  history  of  Greek  cul- 
ture we  find  the  same  rude  beginnings,  and  gradual 
growth,  in  grace  and  power." 

It  is  only  a  false  and  random  metaphor  when  older 
critics  speak  of  epic  poetry  "springing  like  Athene  full 
grown,  and  in  panoply  from  the  brain  of  a  single 
Homer;"  the  great  epic  of  the  Iliad  was  the  flower 
of  an  age  of  epic  efforts,  and  through  its  wonderful 
power  and  interest  it  perpetuated  in  the  cyclic  poets 
the  thread  and  strain  of  epic  narrative,  and  it  was  still 
the  subject  matter  that  gave  these  epics  character.  It 
seems  certainly  true  that  from  the  great  treasury  of 

[81] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

mythology,  a  legacy  of  inexhaustible  abundance  and 
variety,  the  poets  of  Greece  continually  drew  their 
subjects  and  their  inspiration.  Of  Grecian  drama 
Mahaffy  says  "above  all,  we  must  insist  upon  the 
staid  and  conservative  character  of  all  the  Attic  trag- 
edy, the  subjects  were  almost  as  fixed  as  the  scenery, 
being  always  or  almost  always,  subjects  from  the  Tro- 
jan and  Theban  cycle,  with  occasional  excursions 
into  the  myths  about  Heracles." 

The  melic  poets,  the  lyricists,  who  composed  odes 
in  various  measures,  sung  or  danced  and  used  in  pub- 
lic ceremonies,  or  which  were  expressive  of  the  per- 
sonal devotion  of  the  author,  his  friendship  or  his 
despair,  were  perhaps  more  spontaneous  and  new, 
but  upon  them  was  enforced  at  least  the  traditions 
and  the  taste  acquired  through  historic  evolution  of 
the  Greek  people,  a  taste  itself  derivative  from  the 
contemplation  and  study  of  the  great  mythopoetic 
sources  of  their  popular  literature,  the  subject  matter 
of  their  books. 

Not  simply,  observe,  that  subject  matter  fur- 
nished them  with  topics,  but  that  it  trained  their 
minds  into  ways  of  thinking,  supplied  them  with  a 
class  of  images  that  again  reacted  upon  their  speech, 
and  directed  them  or  led  them  into  special  avenues 

[82] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

of  invention;  that  it  became  conjunct  in  their  minds 
with  the  tone  of  those  minds,  and  mingled  a  sway  of 
its  own,  as  a  distinct  determinable  factor,  with  the 
more  unique  incommunicable  sway  of  their  own  cere- 
bral and  physiological  constitution. 

For  they  dwelt  in  their  themes  upon  the  visible 
presence  of  Gods,  upon  their  own  lineal  descent  from 
demi-gods,  upon  superhuman  tragedies,  and  loves; 
they  created  before  their  minds  ideals  of  action,  and 
types  of  form  surpassingly  puissant  and  glorious,  they 
lived  within  the  charmed  presence  of  divinity,  and 
it  was  divinity  whose  heart  beat  with  the  emotions 
they  felt  themselves,  and  on  whose  cheeks  flushed  the 
signals  of  the  same  passions  they  acknowledged.  The 
Greek  by  humanizing  his  gods  raised  his  own  mind 
into  a  serene  empyrean  of  restrained  and  artistic  im- 
pulses, and  borrowed,  by  familiar  intercourse  with 
the  beautiful  conceptions  of  his  Theogony,  a  delicate 
"animalism,"  a  choice  aptitude  for  nice  relations  of 
form,  a  clear,  bright,  style,  and  a  balanced  intellec- 
tual vigor,  warmth  and  directness. 

In  English  Literature  we  find  an  example  of  letters 
which  the  world  has  recognized  as  lofty,  diversified, 
inspiring  and  persistent.  Throughout  that  marvel- 
lous history  of  writing,  which  commences  in  Saxon 

[83] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

chronicles  and  ends  in  the  comprehensiveness  of  mod- 
ern literature,  what  a  striking  succession  of  contrasted 
men;  and  how  broad  the  range  of  expression,  and 
the  power  and  beauty  of  ideas  and  images ;  each  pas- 
sion and  every  phase  and  accent  of  feeling,  the  pro- 
foundest  sentiments  and  the  most  exhilirating  fickle- 
ness of  humour,  have  received  their  verbal  incarna- 
tion in  the  books  of  England.  English  Literature 
may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  representative  expres- 
sions of  modern  literature,  and  in  it  we  may  discern 
the  moulding  and  producing  influences  of  subject 
matter.  As  Greece  presents  the  highest  and  best  type 
of  classical  antiquity,  and  the  embodiment  of  the 
quality  of  a  peculiar  subject  matter,  so  English  liter- 
ature may  be  studied  as  the  philosophic  result  of  high 
and  good  literary  tendencies  of  the  time  since  Christ, 
and  the  presentation  of  the  peculiar  qualities  of  a  very 
different  subject  matter. 

A  determinative  difference  of  feeling,  arising  from 
the  introduction  of  a  new  and  original  series  of  sub- 
ject matters  has  entered  literature  since  the  days  of 
Homer,  Eschylus  and  Pindar.  Areas  of  contact 
still  exist  between  pagan  and  modern  literature,  as 
human  nature  still  follows  a  line  of  similar  develop- 
ment, and,  at  any  rate,  is  the  same  bundle  of  feelings 

[84] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

and  faculties ;  but,  in  its  general  expression,  in  its  tone 
and  temper,  in  its  artistic  methods,  putting  aside  the 
intentional  use  of  imitation  English  literature  is  a  very 
dissimilar  psychological  product  from  Greek  litera- 
ture, and  the  powerful  infusion  of  the  Pagan  Renais- 
sance has  utterly  failed  to  reduce  it  to  any  sort  of  con- 
formity with  the  spirit  of  Plato  and  Sophocles.  Its 
separative  spirit  has  absorbed  the  influences  of  the 
great  classic  revival,  and  merged  them  into  the  domi- 
nant tendencies  arising  from  the  procreative  powers 
of  different  subject  matters;  like  a  stream,  which, 
though  receiving  fresh  additions  of  purer  water  than 
itself,  still  carries  these  new  contributions  along  its 
own  channel,  and  reflects  in  them  the  peculiar  scenery 
of  its  own  banks. 

Between  Shakespeare  and  Euripides  and  Aristo- 
phanes lies  the  enormous  period  of  two  thousand 
years,  and  in  that  period  the  stupendous  convulsion 
of  instincts  produced  by  Christianity,  the  sudden  ir- 
ruption into  life  of  a  new  psychosis,  the  complexity 
of  introspection,  and  the  new  intricacy  of  a  minute 
response  to  nature  in  all  her  moods,  with  new  rela- 
tions between  men  and  women,  and  with  the  purely 
historic  accumulation  of  a  vast  sum  of  subject  matter 
bearing  the  impress  of  this  novel  cultus,  has  pro- 
foundly affected  literary  methods  and  literary  results. 

[85] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

First  in  the  beginning  of  our  era  Christianity  woke 
up  a  new  retinue  of  emotions,  by  starting  the  religious 
impulses  upon  a  new  and  .satisfying  development  of 
mysticism.  In  the  old  world  before  Christ,  the  Eleu- 
sinian  mysteries  had  done  something  of  this  sort.  Its 
votaries,  initiated  in  peculiar  rites  and  taught  a  super- 
sensual  philosophy,  had  gratified  aspirations,  which 
receive  a  democratic  recognition  in  the  graver  mes- 
sages of  Revelation.  What  a  spectacle  of  events — 
the  persecution  of  the  Church,  the  destruction  of 
Rome,  the  assimilation  of  the  northern  tribes  with 
their  fierceness  and  rudeness,  their  heroism  and  rom- 
ance, and  the  oscillations  of  empire,  the  establishment 
of  kingdoms,  feudalism,  chivalry,  and  the  revival  of 
learning,  leavening  the  great  mass  of  traditions  and 
inherited  tendencies  with  intellectual  seriousness  and 
industry.  The  subject  matter  was  no  longer  the 
simple  or  dramatic  incidents  of  budding  existence. 

A  new  host  of  things  was  to  be  told,  and  talked 
about,  and  though  the  world  was  the  same,  the  emo- 
tions had  been  revitalized  with  a  strange  earnestness, 
and  the  vague  unrest,  which  is  so  subtle  an  ingredient 
in  all  thought  about  ourselves,  and  others,  had  per- 
meated like  fungus  spores  through  damp  earth,  the 
speculations  of  art,  and  science.  Knowledge  had 

[86] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

grown  unwearingly,  and  conceptions,  expanding  to 
the  infinite,  knit  together  science  and  revelation  into 
a  realm  of  intellectual  glory; 
The  awful  shadow  of  some  unseen  power 

Floats,  though  unseen,  among  us — visiting 

This  various  world  with  as  inconstant  wing 
As  summer  winds  that  creep  from  flower  to  flower; 
Like  moonbeams,  that  behind  some  piny  mountain 
shower, 

It  visits  with  inconstant  glance 

Each  human  heart  and  countenance, 
Like  hues  and  harmonies  of  evening, 

Like  stars  in  starlight  widely  spread, 

Like  memory  of  music  fled, 

Like  aught  that  for  its  grace  may  be 
Dear,  and  yet  dearer  for  its  mystery. 
Literature  embraced  this  abundance  of  motives,  and 
enclosed  wide  and  diverging  vistas  of  feeling  and 
thought;  a  sort  of  intellectual  sentimentalism,*  deli- 
cate and  interesting,  became  engendered  in  writing 
as  the  mind  dwelt  on  the  picture  of  the  universe,  and 
the  pictures  of  history.  A  symbolism,  religious  in  its 
origin  and  tendency,  carried  out  in  myth  and  poem 
the  mingling  currents  of  ethnic  legend  and  Christian 
morals.  Picturesqueness  of  treatment,  the  kaleido- 

*SaysijMahaffy  (Social  Life  in  Greece)  "Sentimentality  was  in  the  Greek  almost 
unknown." 

[87] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

scope  of  romantic  phrases  and  combinations  entwined 
themselves,  like  flowering  vines,  around  the  laby- 
rinthine suggestiveness  of  the  subject  matter. 

Chateaubriand  in  his  eulogy  of  Christianity  has 
alluded  to  the  literary  suggestiveness  of  this  extraor- 
dinary system,  in  these  eloquent  words:  "sublime  par 
1'antiquite  de  ses  souvenirs,  qui  remontent  au  berceau 
du  monde ;  ineffable  dans  ses  mysteres,  adorable  dans 
ses  sacrements,  interessant  dans  son  historic,  celeste 
dans  sa  morale,  riche  et  charmant  dans  ses  pompes,  il 
reclame  toutes  les  sortes  de  tableaux.  Voulez-vous 
le  suivre  dans  la  poesie?  le  Tasse,  Milton,  Corneille, 
Racine,  Voltaire,  vous  retracent  ses  miracles;  dans 
les  belles — lettres,  1'eloquence,  1'histoire,  la  philo- 
sophic? que  n'ont  point  fait,  par  son  inspiration,  Bos- 
suet,  Fenelon,  Massilon,  Bourdaloue,  Bacon,  Pascal, 
Euler,  Newton,  Leibnitz!  dan  les  arts?  que  de  chefs- 
d'oeuvre!  Si  vous  1'examinez  dan$  son  culte,  que  de 
choses  ne  vous  disent  point  et  ses  vieilles  eglises  goth- 
iques,  et  ses  prieres  admirable,  et  ses,  superbe  cere- 
monies!" 

One  very  conspicuous  result  of  the  new  classes  of 
subject  matter  offered  us  in  the  modern  era  is  the 
birth  of  humour,  that  delineation  of  the  many  com- 
plexities and  contrasts  of  situation  and  character 

[88] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

which  make  the  novels,  the  skillful  and  entertaining 
story,  and  the  realistic  drama. 

The  field  of  writing  embraces  no  longer  solely  the 
movements  and  passions  of  lofty  personages,  nor  is 
it  limited  to  the  routine  of  a  stereotyped  form  of  living. 
In  Grecian  literature  there  was  humour,  in  Aristo- 
phanes and  Theocritus,  and  Comedy  was  born  itself 
from  the  satiric  play  or  interlude,  but,  it  was  immature 
and  nascent.  That  wider  sense  of  humour  which 
gathers  together  the  sentiments  of  sympathy  and 
affection,  and  involves  the  functions  of  amusement 
also,  was  poorly  illustrated,  and  never  had  any  broad 
effectiveness.  It  is  difficult  for  us  rightly  to  seize  and 
designate  the  picturesque  complexity  of  literature  in 
the  Christian  era,  but  in  sentiment  and  in  treatment 
it  must  be  admitted  that  this  picturesque  character 
of  the  material — the  subject  matter — has  swayed  and 
moulded  the  minds  of  men. 

As  birds  denote  the  variation  of  their  eating  by  a 
change  in  their  plumage,  as  animals  change  their  skins 
and  are  even,  we  believe,  modified  internally  by  a 
change  of  climate  and  surroundings,  and  as  shells  be- 
come diminished  and  partially  altered  in  shape  or 
vice  versa  according  to  the  body  of  water  in  which 
they  live,  so  do  writers  respond  unerringly  and  by  an 

[89] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

organic  flexure  of  their  minds  to  the  mass  and  quality 
of  subject  matter.  English  language  is  a  very  com- 
posite structure,  and  it  grew  slowly  through  centur- 
ies, amid  a  series  of  events  which  left  their  impress 
upon  it,  so  that  the  nature  of  subject  matter  is  imbed- 
ded, as  it  were,  in,  or  made  congenial  with,  the  very 
language  which  the  wit  of  man  uses  to  describe  it. 

English  literature  as  expressed  in  Chaucer,  Spen- 
cer, Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Wordsworth,  is  clearly 
a  very  dissimilar  literary  result  from  that  embodied  in 
Homer,  Hesiod,  Aeschylus,  and  Pindar,  and  it  is  a 
difference  not  measured  solely  by  the  interval,  more 
or  less,  of  two  thousand  years,  but  by  that  which 
separates  Pagan  mythology  and  Grecian  history,  from 
Christian  revelation  and  the  history  of  Europe.  It 
is  not  simply  that  the  Christian  writers  were  different 
men  from  their  Grecian  compeers,  but  that  that  differ- 
ence, as  presented  in  them,  sprang  from  a  difference 
in  subject  matter,  which  is,  to  quote  a  simile  of  Mr. 
Lowell's  "a  soil  from  which  the  roots  of  thought  and 
feeling  unconsciously  draw  the  coloring  of  vivid  ex- 
pression." 

And  perhaps  this  difference  in  all  its  manifold 
diversifications  may  be  well  summed  up  in  the  lan- 
guage also  of  Mr.  Lowell,  in  his  learned  and  eloquent 

[90] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

critique  upon  Dante,  where  he  says:  "arma  Vir- 
umque  cano,  that  is  the  motto  of  classic  song;  the 
things  of  this  world  and  great  men.  Dante  says,  sub- 
jectum  est  homo,  not  vir;  my  theme  is  man,  not  a 
man.  The  scene  of  the  old  epic  and  drama  was  in 
this  world  and  its  catastrophe  here;  Dante  lays  his 
scene  in  the  human  soul,  and  his  faith  in  the  other 
world.  He  makes  himself  the  protagonist  of  his  own 
drama.  In  the  Commedia  for  the  first  time  Christi- 
anity wholly  revolutionizes  art,  and  becomes  its  semi- 
nal principle."  A  widened  inspection  of  all  classes 
of  life,  an  interior  esoteric  sensibility  to  the  multiplied 
aspects  of  life,  and  their  aggregate  value,  has  been 
distinctive  of  the  modern  or  Christian  epoch,  and  this 
spirit  has  itself  been  in  a  measure  generated  from  the 
vitality  and  interest  of  a  subject  matter,  itself  organ- 
ized under  influences  very  diverse  from  those  which 
affected  Pagan  life  and  history. 

The  English  language  grew  together  from  Celtic, 
Saxon,  Norman,  Danish  and  Latin  stocks,  though 
but  two  of  these,  Saxon  and  Norman,  can  be  said  to 
form  the  tap  root  of  its  linguistic  tree.  English  Lit- 
erature found  its  subject  matter  in  the  legends  of  the 
Saxon — the  Teutonic  mythology — in  warrior  gods, 
goblins,  witches,  fairies,  demons,  monstrous  deeds  of 

[91] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

valor,  in  aspects  of  nature  wherein  the  animal  world 
blended  with  the  human  to  express  a  more  intense 
effect.  As  Taine  says,  "here  all  is  imagery.  In  their 
impassioned  minds  events  are  not  told  with  the  dry 
propriety  of  an  exact  description ;  each  fits  in  with  its 
pomp  of  sound,  shape,  coloring;  it  is  almost  a  vision 
which  is  raised,  complete  with  its  accompanying 
emotions,  joy,  fury,  excitement." 

English  Literature  found  its  subject  matter  in  the 
tales  and  romances  of  the  Norman,  in  tournaments 
and  serenades,  in  quick-witted  and  flowery  fables, 
notable  knights  and  beautiful  pageants,  for  the  Nor- 
mans, says  Taine,  were  "talkers,  tale-tellers,  speakers 
above  all,  ready  of  tongue,  and  never  stinted  in 
speech."  Taine  continues  "they  were  the  earliest 
who  wrote  the  Song  of  Roland ;  upon  this  they  accu- 
mulated a  multitude  of  songs  concerning  Charle- 
magne, and  his  peers,  concerning  Arthur  and  Merlin, 
the  Greeks  and  Romans,  King  Horn,  Guy  of  War- 
wick, every  prince  and  every  people.  Their  minstrels 
like  their  knights  draw  in  abundance  from  Welsh, 
Franks,  and  Latins,  and  descend  upon  East  and 
West,  in  the  wide  field  of  adventure.  They  address 
themselves  to  a  spirit  of  inquiry,  as  the  Saxons  to  en- 
thusiasm, and  dilute  in  their  long  clear  and  flowing 

[92] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

narratives  the  lively  colors  of  German  and  Breton  tra- 
ditions; battles,  surprises,  single  combats,  embassies, 
speeches,  processions,  ceremonies,  huntings,  a  vari- 
ety of  amusing  events,  employ  their  ready  and  wan- 
dering imaginations." 

The  history  of  feudal  England,  and  the  sights  of 
royal  England,  the  Castles  crowning  cliff  and  spur, 
the  glorious  glitter  of  court  array,  when  it  was  "a 
common  thing  to  put  a  thousand  goats  and  a  hundred 
oxen  on  a  coat,  and  to  carry  a  whole  manor  on  one's 
back,"  the  woodlands  wild  and  dangerous,  masques 
like  that  at  Kenilworth  castle,  and  the  pomp  of  religi- 
ous functions,  such  things  with  the  composite  charac- 
ters they  employed,  was  a  subject  matter  which  bred 
into  English  Literature  that  romantic  and  picturesque 
quality,  that  mingled  sweetness  and  strength  which 
remains  today,  and  which  neither  artifice  nor  classic- 
ism have  expelled  nor  hidden. 

The  Pagan  Renaissance  affected  English  literature. 
Surely  Mr.  Taine  has  made  the  most  of  that,  whether 
in  art  or  in  literature.  It  is  true  it  gave  a  new  appre- 
hension of  form,  a  new  keenness  to  the  appetite  for 
beauty,  but  it  did  not  revoke,  nor  minimize  even  the 
spirit  of  Christian  tendencies.  The  subject  matter 
of  thought — even  though  thought  had  not  been  very 

[93] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

busy — for  fifteen  hundred  years  had  permanently 
affected  literary  processes  and  results,  and  at  any  rate 
no  reading  of  classics  could  modify  the  life  they  saw, 
the  life  they  led,  for  the  writers  of  English.  Pagan 
Renaissance  opened  eyes  and  stirred  the  sources  of 
sense  and  taste,  but  it  opened  and  aroused  them,  that 
"the  pele-mele  of  the  men  and  women  of  Shakes- 
peare plays,"  might  be  recognized  and  recorded. 

It  is  true  the  Pagan  Renaissance  may  have  helped 
the  Protestant  Reformation,  but  in  doing  that  it  did 
not  annull  or  supercede  Christianity,  rather  it  freed 
Christianity  from  the  manacles  of  a  corrupt,  a  narrow, 
and  egoistic  Romanism,  freed  it  so  that  that  very 
Romanism  entered  upon  a  new  and  better  day,  so 
that  the  spirit  of  St.  Francis  might  keep  the  world 
godly  and  keep  it  glad  too.  For  of  this  St.  Francis, 
Matthew  Arnold  writes,  "his  hymn  expresses  a  far 
more  cordial  sense  of  happiness,  even  in  the  material 
world,  than  the  hymn  of  Theocritus.  It  is  that  which 
made  the  fortune  of  Christianity — its  gladness,  not  its 
sorrow ;  not  its  assigning  the  spiritual  world  to  Christ, 
and  the  material  to  the  devil,  but  its  drawing  from 
the  spiritual  world  a  source  of  joy,  so  abundant  that 
it  ran  over  upon  the  material  world  and  transfigured 

it." 

[94] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

So  the  Pagan  Renaissance,  though  it  kept  with 
relentless  persistency  the  subject  matter  of  Paganism 
before  the  eyes  of  scholars,  could  not  change  the  in- 
fluence of  a  very  different  sort  of  subject  matter — the 
complex  history  and  events,  sentiments  and  spirit  of 
an  advancing  Christian  civilization. 

What  literary  creations  distinguish  the  modern  era? 
The  novel  and  the  scientific  style,  style  prolonged  and 
produced  into  temperament  and  treatment.  Are  not 
both  the  result  of  Subject  Matter?  The  former  aris- 
ing from  the  psychological  development  of  character 
which  has  been  studied  and  presented  within  the 
mise  en  scene  of  modern  society,  with  its  tumultuous 
mixture  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  And  the 
scientific  style,  whence  has  it  arisen?  From  the  nice 
scrutiny  of  details,  and  the  imaginative  conception  of 
laws,  from  a  subject  matter  which  from  one  point  of 
view  is  a  mass  of  concrete  facts,  from  another  a  com- 
posite but  orderly  procession  of  ideas,  manifesting 
themselves  in  a  self  developing  or  preordained  series. 

We  are  not  blind  to  the  importance  of  tempera- 
ment as  a  literary  factor.  But  we  lay  stress  upon 
subject  matter  as  an  atmosphere,  an  environment,  by 
which  all  temperament  is  modified.  We  are  engaged 
in  a  peculiar  enquiry. 

[95] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

We  expect  to  show  that  our  best  literary  works 
involve  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery,  in  some  form,  as 
subject  matter,  that  where  these  are  absent,  literary 
results  must  be  very  different  and,  by  our  present 
standards  of  taste,  less  notable  and  subtle,  that  in 
Heaven,  where  exhypothesi,  there  is  no  Sin,  Ignor- 
ance, or  Misery,  literature  must  attain  either  an  inferioi 
excellence,  or  fail  to  exist  at  all,  and  even  more  point- 
edly, that  in  the  approaching  ages  wherein  human 
conditions  may  be  expected  to  undergo  increasing 
ameliorations,  the  slow  decadence  of  Sin,  Ignorance, 
and  Misery,  will  also  mean,  in  its  essential  sections, 
the  decadence  of  literature! 

But  it  will  mean  more  than  that.  We  shall  lose — 
I  mean  the  possible  inhabitants  of  a  world  or  heaven 
where  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery  have  disappeared 
— our  sympathy  with  these  conditions,  resent  even 
their  imaginative  resumption  in  literature.  A  state 
of  perfection,  of  complete  illumination,  of  inviolate 
bliss  will  probably  produce  psychological  results 
which  will  greatly  narrow  and  limit  our  sensibilities, 
so  far  as  those  sensibilities  are  involved  in  a  response 
to  literary  appeals  based  upon  Sin,  Ignorance,  and 
Misery. 

There  might  be  some  intellectual  recognition  of  a 
[96] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

good  piece  of  literature,  wherein  bad  men,  or  fool- 
ish men,  or  suffering  men  were  depicted,  and  history 
with  its  dramatic  displays  of  crime,  folly,  and  pathos, 
might  awaken  a  momentary  admiration.  Yet  in  the 
main  the  favored  beings,  we  are  thinking  of,  would 
be  indifferent  to  the  meaning  of  such  pictures,  and 
suffer  a  disabling  mental  contraction  or  torpidity,  that 
would  make  them  the  worst  possible  auditors  of  a 
splendid  tragedy  or  a  good  comedy.  They  might 
indeed  be  victims  of  a  moral  or  physical  repugnance 
to  such  scenes. 

Certainly  good  men  and  women,  wise  men  and 
women,  and  happy  men  and  women  enjoy  the  artis- 
tic skill  with  which  the  exhilirating  wickedness  of  the 
world,  its  genial  dullness  or  fatuity  and  its  picturesque 
suffering  are  depicted,  but  every  one  of  them  can 
understand  the  sinner,  the  fool,  and  the  victim,  for 
after  all  they  themselves  are  in  a  measure  all  these. 
But  the  transcendental  or  divine  people,  we  are  think- 
ing of,  will  doubtless  be  literary  dullards;  their  hope- 
less and  consummate  ideality  will  kill  effort,  kill  skill, 
kill  curiosity,  kill  imagination. 

Another  thought  of  interest  needs  a  moment's  eluci- 
dation and  extension.  The  varying  phases  and  de- 
grees of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery  and  the  con- 

[97] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

trasted  persons  affected  by  each  will  naturally  have 
some,  or  a  great  deal  of  influence  in  determining  the 
works  of  literature  for  which  they  serve  as  subject 
matter.  The  sin  of  Richard  is  a  rather  different  mat- 
ter in  every  aspect  and  every  literary  result  from  that 
of  Caliban,  the  majestic  defiance  of  Satan  far  apart, 
as  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  from  the  seduction  of 
Adam ;  the  ignorance  of  those  who  seek 

to  unbind 
The  interwoven  clouds  which  make  their  wisdom 

blind, 

is  surely  different  in  expression  and  in  quality  from 
the  ignorance  of  those  "sedately  torpid  and  devoutly 
dumb;"  the  misery  of  Prometheus,  bound  in  the  icy 
recess,  bearing 

Three  thousand  years  of  sleep  unsheltered  hours 

And  moments  aye  divided  by  keen  pangs 

Till  they  seemed  years,  torture  and  solitude, 

Scorn  and  despair, 
from  the  plaintive  sadness  of  her  who  sings 

For  old  unhappy  things, 

And  battles  long  ago. 

Then  there  are  the  more  common,  brutal,  vulgar 
forms  of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery;  these  are  seen 
in  the  Salammbo  of  Flaubert,  the  Emperor  of  Ebers, 

[98] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

the  Pompeii  of  Lytton,  the  Quo  Vadis  of  Sienkewitz, 
the  Hypatia  of  Kingsley,  grading  into  conditions  of 
sentimental  wretchedness,  mental  opacity  and  human 
obliquity  as  in  Daudet's  Jack,  Meredith's  Egoist, 
Hawthorn's  Blithedale  Romance.  And  in  the 
broad  or  fortuitous  advances  of  the  world  we  have 
sections  or  ages  which  show  the  pressure  of  these  en- 
tities, if  we  may  so  call  them,  as  distinctive  character- 
izations. 

The  classic  ages  or  at  least  the  ages  before  the 
Christian  dispensation  and  the  present  ages  of  bar- 
barism are  types  of  unrestrained,  or  at  best  half  dis- 
couraged Sin,  the  sections  of  time  included  between 
A.  D.  500  and  1200  unmistakably  a  state  of  Ignor- 
ance, and  the  subsequent  long  years  of  popular  op- 
pression, monarchical  misrule,  and  class  bigotry  with 
the  attendant  horrors  of  war,  persecution,  individual 
rancor  and  internecine  struggles,  years  of  Misery. 
And  their  literature,  where  it  is  a  national  exhibit, 
is  reflective  if  these  qualities.  The  Bible  is  literature, 
whatever  else  one  cares  to  think  of  it,  and  it  is  a  bit- 
ter blood  thirsty,  pitiless  and  cruel  chronicle  with  the 
impress  of  its  ideas  and  want  of  mercy  imprinted  in 
the  stern  hard  and  majestic  utterances  of  its  writers, 
wherein,  also,  observe,  we  get  the  reaction  from  these 

[99] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

things  in  spiritual  aspirations  and  gentle  admonish- 
ments and  tender  thoughts.  For  here  again  we  touch 
an  important  matter,  we  are  compelled  to 
admit  that  the  forces  which  oppose  Sin,  Ignor- 
ance, and  Misery,  owe  their  spirituous  vitality 
and  insistent  pugnacity  and  intrepidity,  their 
endless  rejuvenation,  to  the  insertive  irritation 
of  just  these  other  conditions,  viz.:  Sin,  Ig- 
norance and  Misery.  It  makes  no  differenece  what 
we  think  as  to  the  affirmative  or  negative  character  of 
Sin  or  Goodness,  Ignorance  or  Knowledge,  Misery 
or  Happiness;  drive  out  the  three  first  and  leave  be- 
hind them  only  the  three  last  alternatives,  and  litera- 
ture ceases,  I  mean  in  the  large  and  larger  number  of 
its  aspects,  because  it  is  the  picture  of  the  fecundity 
and  power  of  Goodness  against  Sin,  the  interpellation 
and  repulse  of  Ignorance  by  Knowledge,  the  dissipa- 
tion of  Misery  by  Happiness  that  gives  us  those  mani- 
fold realizations  of  intellectual  pleasure  that  in  books 
make  up  the  world  of  Literature. 

Reduce  this  question  to  a  physical  basis  and  see 
how  convincing  the  contention  becomes,  how  cred- 
ible an  apparently  aberrant  and  ridiculous  proposi- 
tion. Take  away  darkness  from  the  natural  world, 
and  immerse  all  natural  objects  in  an  unopposed  flood 

[100] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

of  light  and  what  becomes  of  the  beauty  of  the  world? 
Its  shadows,  its  half  lights,  its  tones  and  tints,  the  in- 
effable mystery  of  the  sunrise,  the  poetic  intimations 
of  the  twilight  vanish.  Abolish  the  extremes  of  heat 
and  cold  and  dissipate  the  seasons,  and  there  disap- 
pears a  countless  retinue  of  visual  impressions  which 
in  art  and  in  language  compose  half  the  charm  of  life. 
Level  the  mountains  and  fill  up  the  valleys,  reducing 
the  obstacles  of  travel  and  locomotion,  and  the  earth 
as  landscape  loses  its  intrinsic  powers  of  inspiration, 
its  perpetual  and  bewitching  variety. 

Now  it  seems  a  natural  and  sufficient  rejoinder  to 
say  that  without  light,  without  moderation  or  even- 
ness of  temperature,  without  levels  the  effects  of  dark- 
ness and  extremes  of  heat  and  cold  and  the  inequali- 
ties of  topography  would  also  be  valueless,  and  that 
it  is  illogical  and  precipitate  to  disregard  the  essen- 
tial reciprocity  of  meaning  and  influence  in  these  op- 
posites.  We  appeal  in  answer  to  the  chronology  of 
occurrence,  to  the  priority  of  darkness,  of  tempera- 
tural  mutations  in  the  year,  to  the  priority  of  surficial 
configurations ;  and  in  similar  sense  to  the  priority  of 
Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery  in  this  world,  themselves 
as  pre-occupants  of  the  world,  now  slowly  receding 
before  the  movements  of  amelioration  which  may  in 

[101] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

the  long  end,  scarcely  yet  apparent,  finally  dismiss 
them,  and  with  them  the  excitants  of  literature.  I 
may  indeed  choose  a  phrase  of  Hallam's  to  illustrate 
this;  "we  begin  in  darkness  and  calamity;  and  though 
the  shadows  grow  fainter  as  we  advance,  yet  we  are 
to  break  off  our  pursuit  as  the  morning  breathes  upon 
us,  and  the  twilight  reddens  into  the  lustre  of  day." 

Let  us  return  to  the  suggestion  of  the  separation 
of  the  ages  as  literary  epochs  into  one  of  Sin,  one  of 
Ignorance,  and  one  of  Misery.  This  is  a  tentative 
and  experimental  hint,  and  even  if  it  bears  only  slen- 
derly the  marks  of  likelihood  it  in  no  way  subverts  the 
thesis  here  presented.  It  is  its  misapplication  only. 
But  let  us  see.  I  have  suggested  that  the  classic  age 
and  the  time  before  the  dispensation  might  be  re- 
garded as  marked  in  a  separative  way  by  Sin,  though, 
it  is  evident  that  this  useful  literary  agent  along  with  its 
concomitants,  Ignorance  and  Misery,  has  never  been 
absent  from  the  world,  and  to  distinguish  any  one 
group  of  centuries  by  any  of  these  three  is  simply  to 
try  an  approximative  estimate  of  the  controlling  trait 
of  that  time. 

Now  again  I  call  attention  to  the  strength  of  the 
reaction,  as  Sin  or  Ignorance  or  Misery  predominates 
in  any  time,  the  reaction  of  Goodness,  of  Knowledge, 

[102] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

or  the  Love  of  Knowledge,  and  Benevolence,  or  the 
Love  of  Man.  The  examples  of  virtue  will  be  most 
conspicuous  and  most  beautiful,  probably  most  splen- 
did, in  a  time  of  flagrancy  and  crime,  the  instances 
of  Knowledge  or  its  individual  seekers  most  admir- 
able in  a  time  of  Ignorance,  and  the  struggle  of  Ben- 
evolence most  intense  at  a  time  of  general  Misery. 
Instantly  it  is  apparent  that  Subject  Matter  for  litera- 
ture is  supplied,  not  only  by  the  contents  of  the  Sin, 
or  Ignorance,  or  Misery,  but  further  because  the  re- 
pugnance or  resistance  they  excite,  forces  them  into 
literature  as  things  to  be  avoided,  or  corrected,  or 
overcome,  to  be  drawn,  and  dissected,  and  used  for 
the  ends  of  description,  or  art,  or  enlightenment  or 
morals,  for  plays,  or  stories,  or  sermons;  for  poetry 
or  prose.  These  great  things,  Sin,  Ignorance,  and 
Misery,  form  the  excitation  of  conscience,  mind  and 
sympathy. 

Objectively  as  facts  they  are  subject  matter  of  lit- 
erature, subjectively  they  are  subject  matter  in  the 
thrill  of  resistance  they  excite  for  their  own  extermi- 
nation. And,  not  to  be  perverted  into  too  high  a  vein 
of  exaltation  and  rhapsody  let  us  recall  that  Dothe- 
boys  Hall  was  made  by  Dickens  a  most  comic  liter- 
ary incident,  because  its  whole  delineation  sprang 

[103] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

from  a  movement  of  rage  against  cruel  and  inadequate 
schools  in  England. 

To  return  to  our  Ages.  As  chief  literary  products 
we  have  the  Bible  and  Greek  literature,  in  the  first, 
the  age  of  Sin.  The  Bible  is  the  continuous  picture 
of  Sin,  and  the  continuous  revolt  and  exhortation 
against  it;  Greek  Literature  is  the  poetic  or  histori- 
cal narrative  of  cruel  and  crude  and  wrathful  and 
unbridled  men,  brave  and  strong  and  picturesque  of 
course;  and  further  Greek  Literature  is  philosophic 
dicta  and  poetic  aphorisms  to  correct  conduct,  har- 
monize or  idealize  society.  Men  count,  Style  and 
Treatment  count,  but  Subject  Matter  encloses  the 
roots  of  all  literary  growth. 

And,  as  to  the  Age  of  Ignorance,  the  period  con- 
ventionally held  between  500,  A.  D.  and  1200;  in 
spite,  or,  notwithstanding  Lilly,  and  all  other  apolo- 
gists, the  sentence  of  Hallam  remains  unimpeached: 
"in  the  shadows  of  this  universal  ignorance  a  thous- 
and superstitions  like  foul  animals  of  night,  were  pro- 
pogated  and  nourished.  It  would  be  very  unsatis- 
factory to  exhibit  a  few  specimens  of  this  odious 
brood,  when  the  real  character  of  those  times  is  only 
to  be  judged  by  their  accumulated  multitude.  In 
every  age  it  would  be  easy  to  select  proofs  of  irra- 

[104] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

tional  superstition,  which,  separately  considered,  seem 
to  degrade  mankind  from  its  level  in  the  creation; 
and  perhaps  the  contemporaries  of  Swedenborg  and 
Southcote  have  no  right  to  look  very  contemptuously 
upon  the  fanaticism  of  their  ancestors.  There  are 
many  books  from  which  a  sufficient  number  of  in- 
stances may  be  collected  to  show  the  absurdity  and 
ignorance  of  the  middle  ages." 

Well,  the  Middle  Ages  gave  Literature,  Feudal- 
ism, and  Chivalry  as  its  foil,  and  both  entered  into 
song  and  story,  and  have  continued  to  do  so,  long 
after  both  as  actualities  vanished.  But  in  the  poem 
of  Dante  we  have  the  swelling  and  concentrated 
literary  impulse  which  only  could  have  been  born  and 
written  in  that  peculiar  time  of  piety  and  superstition 
in  which  indeed  a  spiritual  and  allegorical  wisdom 
shines  luminously,  almost  arrogantly,  as  the  protest  of 
a  learned  and  illumined  mind  against  the  ignorance  of 
the  time  he  himself  had  just  overpast,  for  that  ignor- 
ance was  not  only  the  want  of  knowledge,  but  the 
deeper  ignorance  of  temperamental  degradation. 

And  as  to  the  Age  of  Misery,  the  Age  of  greedy 
and  forgetful  kings,  of  the  long  hideous  serfdom  of 
peoples  to  the  wretched  pretences  of  crowns  and 
titles,  the  depravity  and  scintillating  viciousness  of 

[105] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

courts  and  courtier  beginning  to  end  somewhere 
around  the  death  bed  of  Louis  the  XV  for  whom  as 
Carlyle  has  so  fiercely  said  no  prayer  may  be  ex- 
pected for  "from  a  France  smitten  (by  black-art) 
with  plague  after  plague;  and  lying  now,  in  shame 
and  pain,  with  a  Harlot's  foot  on  its  neck,  what 
prayer  can  come?" 

As  to  this  Age  what  literature  has  it  created  ?  As 
subject  matter  it  has  furnished  a  strange  tide  of  livid 
terrors,  a  wonderful  picture  of  royal  extrava- 
gance and  boisterous  frivolity  and  sin,  a  source 
of  picturesque  narrative,  a  study  of  a  degraded 
populace,  the  sumptuous  pageants  of  palaces, 
the  stress  and  scourge  of  war,  the  rage  of 
religious  intolerance,  tumult,  turmoil,  and  suffering, 
the  struggle  upward  of  nations  into  liberty,  a  weird 
and  stimulating  mosaic  of  events,  that  to  the  minds  of 
historian  and  poet,  and  story  teller,  spreads  its  end- 
less tangle  of  stuff  for  literary  fabrics.  And  the  Mis- 
ery of  this  Age,  as  its  reactionary  protest,  created,  as 
Carlyle  says,  "a  Noblesse  of  Literature;  without 
steel  on  their  thigh,  without  gold  in  their  purse,  but 
with  the  grand  thaumaturgic  faculty  of  Thought  in 
their  head.  French  Philisophism  has  arisen ;  in  which 
little  word  how  much  do  we  include !  Here  indeed, 
lies  properly  the  cardinal  symptoms  of  the  whole  wide 

[106] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

spread  malady.  Faith  is  gone  out;  Scepticism  is 
come  in.  Evil  abounds  and  accumulates;  no  man 
has  faith  to  withstand  it,  to  amend  it,  to  begin  by 
amending  himself;  it  must  even  go  on  accumulating. 
While  hollow  languor  and  vacuity  is  the  lot  of  the 
Upper,  and  want  and  stagnation  the  Lower,  and 
universal  misery  is  very  certain,  what  other  is  cer- 
tain?" 

Perhaps  this  is  not  the  exact  sense  in  which  we 
have  accentuated  the  value  of  Misery  as  subject  mat- 
ter, but  in  the  derivative  sense,  which  we  have  men- 
tioned and  which  we  must  lay  hold  of  as  helpful  and 
complementary  to  our  thesis,  in  the  sense  of  reaction 
this  literature  of  the  philosophes  and  encyclopedists, 
did  arise  from  the  subject  matter  at  hand.  Perhaps 
it  is  a  rather  metaphysical  view  of  the  matter  to  in- 
sist on  these  separate  ages  of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and 
Misery,  and  it  is  strictly  more  true,  that  at  no  time 
can  we  find  literary  products  without  all  of  these  ele- 
ments, but  it  might  prove  a  fruitful  theme  for  those, 
qualified  by  learning  and  reading,  to  show,  as  we  in- 
deed think  it  may  be  shown  that  there  was  a  separa- 
tive index  in  literature  between  these  periods  on 
these  very  lines.  And  if  so  then  it  would  form  a  just 
contribution  to  the  topic  here  rendered,  The  Evolu- 
tion of  Literary  Types. 

[107] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

But  in  a  more  literal  way,  and  without  straining 
our  ingenuity  in  high-flown  speculations,  what  are  the 
types  of  Literature  which  may  be  classified  as  due  to 
Sin  as  subject  matter,  or  to  Ignorance  as  such,  or  to 
Misery,  and  further  in  what  ordinal  relations,  as 
higher  or  lower,  do  such  types  stand?  The  moment 
we  ask  this  question,  we  at  once  realize  that  the  three 
elements  of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery,  vary  them- 
selves, as  higher  and  lower,  in  their  kind  or  species 
of  details  and  contents.  The  brutal  murder  of  Nancy 
by  Sykes  in  Oliver  Twist  is  a  lower,  more  degraded 
form  of  Sin  that  that  indicated  in  the  refined  self- 
accusations  of  Keith  Rickman  in  The  Divine  Fire 
because  he  had  not  told  Miss  Lucia  Harden  that  he 
knew  of  her  Father's  insolvency,  before  he  inventor- 
ied his  library.  One  was  a  sin  of  physical  ferocity, 
the  other,  if  so  construed,  a  sin  of  mental  lassitude  or 
inaction.  The  Ignorance  of  Topsy  in  the  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  is  a  very  remote  and  lower  form,  than 
the  ignorance  of  Robert  Elsmere  over  the  evidences 
of  Christianity,  in  Mrs.  Ward's  novel  of  that  name. 
The  Misery  of  fleshly  torture  inflicted  upon  Matho 
by  the  Carthagenians  in  Flaubert's  story  of  Salamm- 
bo,  in  an  artistic  sense,  is  a  much  lower  form  of  suffer- 
ing than  the  mental  agonies  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Dim- 

[108] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

mesdale  in  Hawthorne's  Scarlet  Letter.  This  by 
way  of  interjection. 

Now  it  would  be  generally  admitted  that  the  lit- 
erary effectiveness  of  Sin  springs  largely  from  the  in- 
dissoluble connection  made  with  it  by  Misery,  and 
that  the  delineation  of  Sin  alone  without  the  height- 
ening accompaniments  of  remorse,  contrition,  fear, 
reparation  would  be  lacking  in  strong  impressive  ele- 
quent  literary  traits,  it  would  degenerate  into  a  sen- 
sational picture  of  deeds  of  crime,  pictures  indeed 
which  have  an  interest  according  to  the  skill  of  the 
writer,  but  which  can  not  be  ranked  with  those  which 
involve  mental  suffering  as  a  consequence  of  the  Sin. 
Similarly  Ignorance  except  as  it  is  crass,  vulgar,  im- 
pudent and  amusing,  has  few  literary  uses  unless  it 
brings  with  it  a  kind  of  pain,  that  enriching  sadness 
of  regret  or  wonderment  or  importunity,  which  trans- 
mutes ignorance  in  its  higher  forms  (such  as  appear 
in  Maeterlinck  or  even  Tolstoi  and  Ibsen)  into  the 
aspirations  of  poetry,  the  far  away  longing  cry  of  men 
in  a  blind,  misleading  or  enigmatical,  and  yet  alto- 
gether wonderful  world. 

It  also  therefore  seems  apparent  that  Misery,  as  it 
is  in  the  higher  illustrations  of  Literature  derivative 
from  Sin  and  Ignorance,  must  be  ranked  below  these, 

[109] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

though  we  all  know  how  well  Defoe,  Bunyan,  Sien- 
kewitz,  Jack  London,  Crabbe  have  used  the  stark 
properties  of  Misery  to  give  literary  intensity  and  ter- 
ror. The  questions  of  primacy  as  subject  matter  in 
literature  is  thus  narrowed  down  between  Sin  and 
Ignorance. 

And  as  between  these  a  little  reflection  makes  it 
clear  that  Sin  must  originate  the  highest,  most  pro- 
found and  interesting  literary  works;  Sin  that  preva- 
lent and  curious  delinquency  of  thought  and  word  and 
act,  that  inextricable  element  of  obliquity,  half  physi- 
ological, half  spiritual,  sometimes  a  mere  conventional 
error,  often  the  wildest  raging  of  uncontrollable  de- 
sires and  appetites,  and  again  the  delicate  almost 
delicious  peccadilloes,  infirmities,  and  foibles,  of  age 
and  youth  (See  Chapter  IV)  !  For  let  it  be  also 
recalled  that  a  Sinfulness  of  a  sort,  not  to  be  excluded 
in  our  wide  investiture  of  meaning  in  this  word,  has 
created  Humour,  for  Humour,  to  quote  Lowell,  is 
"in  its  first  analysis  a  perception  of  the  incongruous, 
and  in  its  highest  development,  of  the  incongruity  be- 
tween the  actual  and  the  ideal  in  men  and  life.  "  Thus 
from  Sin  we  get  tragedy  and  comedy  in  which  latter 
indeed  Ignorance  enters  as  a  surprising  and  entertain- 
ing ingredient,  for  therein  we  have  all  the  grotesquer- 

[110] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

ies  of  fools,  and  simpletons,  and  egotists,  the  lavish 
procession  of  the  self-deluded,  the  fops,  dupes,  hys- 
tericals,  sentimentalists,  mockers,  inflated,  dullards, 
the  variegated  and  laugh-producing  army  of  the  Silly. 
As  Subject  matter  Sin  gives  us  the  Play,  the  Novel, 
and  surely  most  History  would  prove  dry  reading 
unless  we  had  the  word  paintings  of  their  authors  of 
wickedness,  roguery,  viciousness,  temper,  violence, 
contumacy,  cruelty,  craft,  and  then  all  the  milder 
forms  of  Sin,  what  Lowell  calls  "the  social  pictur- 
esque which  gives  piquancy  to  anecdote." 

We  may  continue  to  quote  Lowell  acceptably:  "in 
what  gutters  had  not  Macaulay  raked  for  the  brilliant 
bits  with  which  he  has  put  together  his  admirable 
mosaic  picture  of  England  under  the  last  Stuarts? 
Even  Mommsen  himself,  who  dislikes  Plutarch's 
method  as  much  as  Montaigne  loved  it,  cannot  get 
or  give  a  lively  notion  of  ancient  Rome,  without  run- 
ning to  the  comic  poets  and  anecdote-mongers.  He 
gives  us  the  very  beef  tea  of  history,  nourishing  and 
even  palatable  enough,  exceptionally  portable  for  a 
memory  that  must  carry  her  own  packs,  and  can  af- 
ford little  luggage;  but  for  our  own  part,  we  prefer 
a  full,  old-fashioned  meal,  with  its  side  dishes  of 
spicy  gossip,  and  its  last  relish,  the  Stilton  of  scandal, 
so  it  be  not  too  high." 

[Ill] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

But  what  is  the  subject  matter  of  Ignorance?  I 
will  not  instance  its  contributions  to  Comedy,  in- 
stanced above,  and  in  all  cases  plain  enough,  but  go 
to  a  more  subtle  and  exalted  aspect  of  its  power  in 
Literature.  For  Ignorance  is  our  attitude  towards 
Nature  and  the  Universe,  towards  our  destiny,  our 
meaning,  and  the  myriad-headed  enigmas  all  about 
us.  Here  surely  we  enter  upon  a  most  wide  and 
beautiful  field  of  literary  thought  where  Poetry  with 
dreams,  and  Philosophy  with  guesses,  and  Religion 
with  revelations  and  Science  with  hypotheses  play 
tumultuously,  and  in  their  profuse  way  shower  us 
with  books. 

Not  indeed  do  we  solely  mean  the  crass  ignorance 
of  the  rude  illiterary  of  boors,  or  the  less  picturesque 
foolishness  of  society,  or  the  pallid  nonsense  of  drones 
and  crokers  (all  useful  and  immoderately  funny  for 
literary  commodity),  but  that  mystifying  and  yet  not 
unpleasant  incertitude  that  makes — to  construe  for 
our  purpose  the  language  of  Maeterlinck — all  "our 
reflections,  our  obstinate  search  for  the  final  cause, 
our  admiration  and  hopes — all  these  in  truth  no  more 
than  our  feeble  cry  as,  in  the  depths  of  the  unknown, 
we  clash  against  what  is  more  unknowable  still;  and 
this  feeble  cry  declares  the  highest  degree  of  individ- 
ual existence  attainable  for  us  on  this  mute  and  im- 

[112] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

penetrable  surface,  even  as  the  flight  of  the  condor, 
the  song  of  the  nightingale,  reveal  to  them  the  highest 
degree  of  existence  their  species  allows.  But  the  evo- 
cation of  this  feeble  cry,  whenever  opportunity  offers, 
is  none  the  less  one  of  our  most  unmistabable  duties; 
nor  should  we  let  ourselves  be  discouraged  by  its 
apparent  futility." 

Here  we  encounter  the  subject  matter  of  idea  and 
feeling  rather  than  the  subject  matter  of  facts,  that  in- 
tangible atmosphere  of  supersensuous  recognition 
which  enters  into  the  poet's  wail  and  pathos,  and 
fugitive  yearnings,  which  starts  into  life  the  hetero- 
geneous schemes  of  renovators,  reformers  and 
preachers,  which  in  more  concrete  and  toler- 
able ways  is  the  inspiration  of  scientific  spec- 
ulations and  forms  the  reasonableness  of  beau- 
tiful interpretation  of  nature.  Illumine  the  world, 
set  all  the  dark  places  in  the  light  of  assurance  and 
intelligibility,  unravel  the  netted  and  confusing  mesh 
of  ends,  aims,  projects,  fortunes  and  misfortunes,  ad- 
vances and  reversals  in  national  and  individual  lives, 
dissolve  the  mystery  of  our  relations  to  the  past,  to 
the  future,  erect  high  the  irreversible  standard  of  an 
absolute  form  of  conduct,  and  so  enforce  it  that  all 
society  becomes  a  model  community,  correct  the 
vagaries  of  our  physiological  disquietudes  and  contra- 

[113] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

dictions,  so  that  we — our  bodies — work  with  auto- 
matic ease  and  regularity  and  become  endued  at  last 
with  a  fine  compunction  to  afford  each  the  full  rev- 
enue of  delight  in  a  sound  body  and  appeased  appe- 
tites, saturate  to  the  full  the  clamorous  desire  to  know 
the  essence  of  things,  pull  up  the  curtain  on  all  sides, 
and  place  us  in  the  petrifying  light  of  certitude,  and 
we  shall  succumb  to  the  stupefaction  of  cognition, 
without  a  word,  unenviably  relieved  of  the  power  o\ 
vocal  beauty,  robbed  of  the  blessed  literary  material 
of  Ignorance. 

Our  poets  shall  become  as  dumb  as  the  birds  in 
the  flooded  sunlight  at  noon,  when  questions  of  the 
dawn  and  the  twilight  are  no  longer  felt,  our  tremu- 
lous hopefulness  over  new  discoveries  will  vanish  in 
the  glare  of  absolute  confidence,  society  will  subside 
in  the  stagnation  of  universal  happiness,  and  in  the 
general  illumination  of  our  surfeited  minds  language 
will  forego  its  beautiful  uses  in  the  service  of  literary 
invention. 

In  some  exact  and  rigid  interpretation  of  Nature 
and  her  work,  where  will  the  insinuating  charm  of  the 
sensitive  thoughts  of  a  man  like  Maeterlinck  come  in 
with  their  refreshing  loveliness,  when  he  says  in  his 
book  on  flowers:  "all  the  flowers  of  the  world,  the 
successful  efforts,  the  deep  inmost  beauties,  the  joyful 

[114] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

thoughts  and  wishes  of  the  planet,  rose  up  to  us, 
borne  on  a  shaft  of  light  that  in  spite  of  its  heavenly 
wonder,  issued  from  our  own  earth.  Man  ventured 
forth  from  the  cloister,  the  crypt,  the  town  of  brick 
and  stone,  the  gloomy  stronghold  in  which  he  had 
slept.  He  went  down  into  the  garden,  which  be- 
came peopled  with  azure  and  purple,  perfumes 
opened  his  eyes,  astounded  like  a  child  escaping  from 
the  dreams  of  the  night,  and  the  forest,  the  plain,  the 
sea,  and  the  mountains,  and  lastly  the  birds  and  the 
flowers,  that  speak  in  the  name  of  all  a  more  human 
language  which  he  already  understood,  greeted  his 
awakening." 

The  to-and-fro  play  of  fancy  and  observation  on 
the  mere  marvels  of  the  outside  world  will  droop  in 
inaction,  as  we  know  the  single  solitary  way  to  under- 
stand it  all,  and  with  the  chrysalis  of  wonder  and 
doubt  broken  and  our  escaping  souls  freed  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  an  unquestionable  explanation,  on  what 
food  of  fascinating  surmises  would  our  literary  im- 
pulses feed?  No!  Ignorance,  in  the  wide  appanage 
of  its  implications  means  much  for  Literature,  and  in 
a  world  completely  informed,  the  exquisite  verbal 
dissimulations  of  our  minds  could  not  exist. 

For  as  Lowell  has  said  "imagination,  has  always 
been  and  still  is,  in  a  narrower  sense,  the  great  myth- 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ologizer."  Kill  Ignorance,  the  nuances  of  whose 
meanings  grade  all  the  way  from  brutish  torpidity  to 
the  refined  credulity  of  the  fancy  which  "fills  moonlit 
dells  with  dancing  fairies,  sets  out  a  meal  for  the 
Brownie,  hears  the  tinkle  of  airy  bridal  bells  as  Tarn- 
lane  rides  away  with  the  Queen  of  Dreams,  changes 
Pluto  and  Proserpine  into  Oberon  and  Titania,  and 
makes  friends  with  unseen  powers  as  Good  Folk," 
destroy  it  utterly  in  all  its  forms,  and  there  suddenly 
vanishes  with  it  the  necromancy  of  the  poet,  not  only 
his  own  repressed  activity  of  creation,  but  our  own 
willing  and  charmed  acquiescence. 

And  now  let  us  try  to  find  out  in  what  realms  of 
literature  the  impress  of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery 
is  distinctly  shown,  as  subject  matter.  After  some 
thinking  over  the  question  it  appears  to  us  that  Sin 
subject-matter  produces  Drama,  Misery  subject- 
matter  produces  the  Novel,  and  Ignorance  subject- 
matter  produces  Poetry.  It  is  not  meant  that  these 
kinds  of  subject  matter  are  all  involved  in  each  sort 
of  literary  product  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others,  but 
that,  elemental  stuff  of  the  play  is  Sin,  and  of  the  novel 
or  story,  is  Misery,  (albeit  generally  overcome  and 
repulsed),  and  of  poetry,  or  fanciful  dreaming  and 
picture  making  quests  of  thought,  is  Ignorance.  To 
say  this,  may  seem  only  a  trick  of  singularity,  but  let 

[116] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

us  look  beneath  the  mere  surface  and  ordinary  mean- 
ing or  usage  of  words,  to  find  its  intrinsic  and  truthful 
reflection  of  a  principle. 

Sin  furnishes  the  most  powerful  dramatic  motives 
that  can  be  conceived,  those  that  most  fruitfully  serve 
the  designs  of  the  dramatist.  How  can  that  be 
doubted?  Let  us  take  a  good  instance  of  a  success- 
ful play,  and  one  which  is  quite  modern  in  the  history 
of  the  stage,  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  and  L'Aiglon,  both 
by  the  same  author,  who  for  their  excellence  was 
admitted  into  the  envied  fraternity  of  the  Immortals 
in  France,  and  in  which  plays  there  was  no  element 
of  Sin  involved,  and  then  compare  these  dramas,  re- 
spectively made  famous  by  their  presentation  by 
Mansfield  and  Bernhardt — compare  them  with  a  play 
in  which  the  Sin-substance  enters  completely. 

In  Cyrano  we  indeed  have  Suffering,  poignant, 
subtle,  and  poetic,  and  the  play  interests  by  its  play 
of  delicate  sentiment,  the  comic  situations  of  Rague- 
neau,  and  the  bluffing  and  boasting  Gascons,  the 
stumbling  awkwardness  and  gaucherie  of  the  tongue- 
tied  Christien,  and  the  exacting  fastidiousness  of  the 
fair  Roxane,  this  all  deliciously  relieved  against  the 
whimsical  valor  of  the  brave  and  heart  stricken  Cy- 
rano. But  what  else  is  there  in  this  admirable  trifle? 
It  would  not  endure  long  on  the  stage  without  the 

[117] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

prestige  and  art  of  individual  mastery.  It  may  make 
a  tour  de  force  of  stage  craft,  but  it  falls  short  of  the 
thrilling  and  emotional  crescendoes  of  those  plays, 
where  the  course  of  Sin,  its  triumph  or  its  overthrow, 
moulds  and  changes  character  and,  with  the  direful 
presage  of  defeat  or  victory,  condenses  in  some  su- 
preme moment  its  malignancy  or  its  sorrow ;  or  broods 
like  some  cloud  weirdly  disturbed  and  lit  by  unearthly 
fires,  over  the  stage  of  human  weakness  and  despair. 

Take  the  great  illustrations  of  Othello,  Antigone, 
Phedre  or  go  to  Sardou,  contemporaneous  and 
French,  and  also  blamed  for  his  hollow  artifice,  and 
trumped  up  and  surcharged  paroxisms,  of  unhealthy 
sentiment.  Take  Fedora  or  Theodora  or  the  Sor- 
ceress or  Gismonda.  Here  is  Sin,  or  what  passes  for 
Sin,  the  tumultuous  and  illicit  or  irregular  storms  of 
the  love  passion.  But  given  their  strong  and  appeal- 
ing interpretation,  how  arresting  and  absorbing  they 
are,  how  the  eye  is  fascinated  and  fixed  upon  the  stage 
in  an  absorption  that  is  the  sign  of  the  capture  of  the 
mind,  at  least,  (if  not  the  heart),  in  the  vice  of  an 
inexorable  interest.  It  will  be  instantly  said  that  none 
of  Sardou's  plays  can  be  compared  for  an  instant  as 
literature  with  the  masterpieces  of  Rostand.  Let  it 
be  so.  But  we  are  discussing  the  essential  substance 
of  great  plays,  and  if  the  questions  of  mere  literary 

[118] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

excellence  is  urgent,  we  will  fall  back  on  the  Grecian 
authors,  or  seize  upon  the  unquestionable  supremacy 
of  Shakespeare. 

And  indeed  it  seems  to  us  that  L'Aiglon,  although 
dealing  with  a  much  less  interesting  character  in  the 
Duke  of  Reichstadt,  than  the  magnanimous  and  ec- 
centric Cyrano,  obtains  from  the  malign  purpose  of 
Metternich,  the  shadowy  vindictiveness  of  his  arch 
hatred,  a  kind  of  steadying  intensity,  that  is  lacking  in 
the  greater  composition.  It  plays  better. 

But  we  do  not  wish  to  be  driven  to  subterfuge. 
Comedy  is  good  drama.  Of  course.  And  the 
amused  and  unconvinced  reader  will  then  ask:  "is 
then  Comedy  a  dramatic  expression  of  Sin?"  It  is. 
Laughter  and  rebuke  meet  this  claim.  But  should 
they?  We  have  elsewhere  dwelt  on  this,  (Chapter 
IV),  but  we  can  here  exert  a  little  pressure  to  secure 
a  toleration  for  so  apparently  exigent  a  plea.  What 
is  Comedy?  "A  play  that  makes  us  laugh"  may  be 
a  good  general  account  of  the  matter  from  the  ob- 
jective standpoint  of  an  audience  paying  for  an  en- 
tertainment that  keeps  them  diverted.  But  let  us 
make  some  necessary  exceptions.  Farces,  buffoonery, 
Vaudeville  "sketches,"  clown  stunts,  comic  opera,  are 
not  literature.  The  Misanthrope,  The  School  for 
Scandal,  She  stoops  to  Conquer,  Medecin  malgre 

[119] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Lui,  Twelfth  Night,  Peg  Woffington  are  comedies, 
and  are  literature.  The  audiences  also  laugh  here. 

But  why?  Is  not  their  laughter  the  masked  grim- 
ace of  regret  at  human  frailty,  weakness,  imperfec- 
tion, gross  or  disturbing  vanity,  grotesque  perversion 
of  justice,  the  travesties  of  virtues  in  borrowed  clothes, 
stalking  in  pitiful  or  abject  hardness  of  heart  and 
blindness  of  mind  as  something  excellent  and  worthy, 
mental  deception,  crudities  of  limping  speech;  all  this 
a  sort  of  lessened  non-criminal  Sin,  not  august  by  rea- 
son of  a  moral  lesson  involving  a  basic  transgression 
of  Right,  but  still  an  infraction,  at  some  point,  of  per- 
fection, of  the  ideal,  of  the  complete,  of  the  just,  of 
the  transcendent.  Let  it  be  said  then  for  the  pur- 
pose of  this  tentative  classification  of  these  three  sub- 
ject matters — that  the  Subject  Matter  of  Sin  makes 
the  drama. 

Now  in  regard  to  Misery,  it  is  the  subject  matter 
(of  course  admitting  its  admixture  in  all  literature)  of 
the  Story — the  Novel,  though,  for  the  pacification  of 
sympathy,  and  simply  as  a  bit  of  literary  therapeutics, 
the  novel — the  Story — usually  "ends  well."  But 
Misery — Suffering — are  its  theme. 

The  three  great  epics  of  the  world,  the  Iliad,  the 
Inferno  of  the  Divine  Comedy  of  Dante,  the  Para- 
dise Lost  are  novels — stories  simply — all  three 

[120] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

painting  with  tremendous  power  the  aspects  and 
depths  of  suffering,  of  pain,  of  disappointment,  of 
many  hued  and  variously  voiced  Misery.  The  story 
or  as  we  now  have  it  the  novel,  is  a  reflection  of  the 
experiences  of  the  daily  life  of  men  and  women. 
There  are  stories  of  fancy,  of  myths,  of  legendary 
heroes,  of  fairies,  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  arithmeti- 
cal folk  lore  tales,  but  they  generally  are  scarcely  lit- 
erature. They  attain  the  literary  stature  in  the  Can- 
terbury Tales,  and  Spenser's  Fairy  Queene,  for  these, 
though  couched  in  lovely  poetic  form,  are  still  stor- 
ies, metrical  novels.  And  in  both  surely  there  is 
misery ; 

Though  vertue  then  were  held  in  highest  price, 

In  those  old  times  of  which  I  doe  entreat, 

Yet  then  likewise  the  wicked  seede  of  vice 

Began  to  spring;  which  shortly  grew  full  great, 

And  with  their  boughes  the  gentle  plants  did  beat : 

But  evermore  some  of  the  vertuous  race 

Rose  up,  inspired  with  heroicke  heat, 

That  cropt  the  branches  of  the  sient  base, 

And  with  strong  hand  their  fruitful  ranckes  did 

deface. 

Thus  Spenser  sings,  and  his  beautiful,  winding, 
and  lofty  hearted  verse  tells  the  wars  of  Goodness 
fighting  oppression  and  guile,  and  the  many  blotted 

[121] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

efforts  of  wrong.  Artegall,  Arthur,  Calidore,  seem 
to  be  ceaselessly  engaged  in  purging  a  world  beset 
with  wicked  knights,  giants,  sorcerers,  beasts,  trucu- 
lent Souldans  and  sense-chaining  Radigunds ;  the  alle- 
gorical figures  for  our  many  evils,  both  now  and  then, 
which  bestow  on  life  its  chequered  interest.  And 
what  is  told  in  the  Canterbury  Tales? 

Saunders  tells  us:  "what  Shakespeare  said  the 
stage  should  be — and  made  it — Chaucer  had  previ- 
ously made  his  works: — a  mirror  reflecting  the  very 
image  and  body  of  the  time — and  with  the  same  ob- 
ject as  Shakespeare,  that  vice  and  scorn  might  see 
their  image.  In  consequence  what  Froissart  was 
merely  to  chivalry,  an  unreal  but  brilliant  institution 
of  the  hour,  Chaucer  was  to  the  entire  life  of  Eng- 
land, with  all  its  variety  of  character  and  class,  all  its 
conflicting  interests  and  passions  and  views." 

The  Novel  has  become  the  significant  literary  ex- 
pression of  our  day.  It  embraces  the  most  notable 
contributions  to  literature,  and  in  its  highest  forms, 
displays,  perhaps  more  widely  than  in  any  other 
form,  the  union  of  imagination,  observation,  phil- 
osophy, learning,  sensibility,  and  verbal  skill.  We 
are  indeed  inundated  with  novels,  and  some  of  Jeffer- 
son's aversion  arises  naturally  at  their  frequent  useless- 
ness,  their  not  infrequent  insipidity.  But  the  novel 

[122] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

appeals  to  an  almost  insatiable  appetite.  It  pays  to 
write,  even  poor  novels,  and  when  we  consider  the 
incalculable  deluge  of  stories,  their  absorption  by  the 
reading  public  appears  almost  stupifying.  And  in  all 
the  really  immortal  novels,  the  theme  is  human  misery, 
suffering,  battle,  pains,  defeats,  ending,  to  be  sure 
quite  generally  in  some  sort  of  compromise-happiness 
at  the  immediate  end,  which  lasts  the  short  time  of 
the  few  last  pages,  when  the  curtain  drops,  beyond 
which  again,  were  we  permitted  to  see  further,  the 
toil  and  trouble  and  weariness  goes  on  as  before. 

And  are  not  the  best  novels,  those  that  will  most 
likely  survive  as  representative  expressions  of  national 
literature,  just  those  which  most  ingrainedly  express 
the  misery  of  the  world?  The  Scarlet  Letter,  The 
Heart  of  Midlothian,  Lucia  de  Lammermoor,  Arma- 
dale,  David  Copperfield,  Vanity  Fair,  Pecheur 
d'Islande,  Pere  Goriot,  The  Manxman,  Tess  of  the 
D'Urbervilles,  the  Pirate,  Les  Miserables,  Cloister 
and  the  Hearth,  On  the  Heights,  Daughter  of  Heth, 
Daniel  Deronda,  Silas  Marner,  Hypatia,  Barchester 
Towers,  Fathers  and  Daughters,  Jude,  The  Laodi- 
cean, and  so  on  and  so  on.  This  is  a  random  selec- 
tion, but  it  means  what  we  claim.  There  are  thous- 
ands of  novels  that  do  not  so  piercingly  tell  us  the  trag- 
edy of  life,  and  they  are  excellent  literature,  and  will 

[123] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

be  so  classed,  but  still  an  analysis  of  their  contents 
would  finally  resolve  them  into  a  distinct  growth  from 
the  subject  matter  of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery,  and 
principally  Misery.  For  as  there  is  a  lesser  state  of 
Sin  in  the  Comedy,  so  there  are  lesser  states  of  Mis- 
ery, which  may  give  us  entertaining  and  merely  mirth- 
ful novels  or  stories. 

And  now  lastly  as  to  Ignorance,  as  the  imbedded 
subject  matter  of  Poetry.  Ignorance  is  protean.  We 
have  spoken  of  that.  In  poetry  it  is  the  ignorance  of 
doubt,  questioning,  the  grief  of  the  lacerated  mind 
before  the  mystery  of  all  things,  before  the  inevitable 
conflict  of  our  aspirations  and  our  conditions.  It  may 
be  quite  right  in  a  partial  way  to  find  fault  with  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  as  Prof.  Woodbury  has  done,  when  the 
former  writes  such  lines  and  sentiments  as  these, 
Ah,  love  let  us  be  true 

To  one  another!  for  the  world  which  seems 

To  lie  before  us  like  a  world  of  dreams, 
So  various,  so  beautiful,  so  new, 

Hath  really  neither  joy,  nor  love,  nor  light, 

Nor  certitude,  nor  peace,  nor  help  for  pain, 
and  again : 

Yet  Fausta,  the  mute  turf  we  tread, 

The  solemn  hills  about  us  spread, 

The  stream  that  falls  incessantly, 
[124] 


EVOLUTION    OF    TYPES 

The  strange  scrawled  rock,  the  lonely  sky 

If  I  might  lend  their  life  a  voice, 

Seem  to  bear  rather  than  rejoice? 
but  it  is  just  as  evident  that  Arnold  was  sane,  intelli- 
gent, observant,  and  this  mournfulness  had  to  him  jus- 
tifiable provocation.    Nor  is  his  view  a  solitary  one. 

We  are  not  here  called  upon  to  suggest  more  prof- 
itable reflections  upon  life  than  those  Arnold  consist- 
ently expressed;  it  is  pertinent  only  to  observe  that 
the  inspiration  of  a  distinguished  poet  has  found  its 
springs  in  the  contemplation  of  life's  sadness. 

Prof.  Woodbury  has  himself  said  that  "the  spirit 
of  discontent  has  been  a  presiding  genius  in  literature 
since  the  reflective  life  of  man  began."  He  has  also 
spoken,  in  another  place,  of  "mankind  itself  suffer- 
ing in  all  its  race  life,  and  throughout  its  history, 
wretched,  tyrannized  over  by  some  dark  and  unjust 
necessity,  yet  unterrified."  The  sacred  gift  of  poetry 
is  allowed  to  temperaments  and  souls  delicately  ad- 
justed to  feel  outward  impressions,  to  see  and  ex- 
press the  inwardness  of  things.  How  the  poet  must 
respond  to  these  apparent  conditions  of  ignorance,  of 
darkness,  of  destitution,  of  unanswered  prayer!  and 
because  he  feels  their  poignancy,  his  voice  swells  most 
musically  into  the  exaltation  of  defiance,  of  resigna- 
tion, of  despair,  of  pathos,  of  faith.  Has  not  Wood- 

[125] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

bury  said  of  Shelley,  his  favorite  poet,  "he  also  gave 
a  voice  to  the  lament  of  the  soul,  to  its  aspirations  and 
its  ineradicable,  if  mistaken,  faith  in  the  results  of 
time ;  and  the  ideas  which  he  uttered  with  such  afflu- 
ence of  expression,  such  poignancy  of  sympathy,  such 
a  thrill  of  prophetic  triumph,  are  absorbed  in  the  spirit 
which  poured  them  forth — in  its  indignation  at  injus- 
tice, its  hopefulness  of  progress,  its  complete  convic- 
tion in  the  righteousness  of  its  cause."  In  a  world 
of  scientific  demonstration  there  would  be  torpor  of 
curiosity;  in  a  world  of  complete  illumination,  there 
would  be  silence  of  questioning ;  and  in  Heaven,  the 
peculiar  haunting  mysticism  and  grave  beauty,  and 
tender  melancholies  and  bold  negations  and  irrefra- 
gable sweetness  of  Poetry  might  all  disappear. 


[126] 


CHAPTER  III. 

FRENCH  LITERATURE 

In  all  respects,  as  far  as  writing  in  prose  is  con- 
cerned, nothing  existing  in  the  living  languages  of  the 
day  can  be  compared  with  French.  The  vehicle  of 
ideas  provided,  by  the  French  language  is  incompar- 
able. A  thorough  feeling  for  the  unequalled  perfec- 
tion of  this  language  must  convince  an  Englishman 
that  his  own  tongue  is  a  somewhat  clumsy,  and  crip- 
pled instrument,  out  of  tune,  abortive,  raucous,  and 
stupid.  This  superiority  of  French  is  so  obvious  to 
the  attuned  and  informed  ear  that  it  is  almost  a  won- 
der that  English  writers  persist  in  their  attempts  to 
write  at  all.  It  is  possible  that  Americans  may,  by 
a  certain  velocity  of  mind  and  an  emancipation  of  ver- 
bal form  and  treatment,  save  this  venerable  tongue 
from  extinction  as  a  literary  medium,  and  of  course 
the  hopeless  ignorance  of  every  one,  who  today  writes 
English,  of  how  to  write  French,  will  still  provide 
English  and  American  printers  with  material  for  their 
presses,  and  probably  contrive  to  do  so  for  a  century 
or  more. 

These  reflections  hardly  seem  exaggeration.  Eng- 
lish can  be  used  quite  effectively  in  prose  writing,  and 

[127] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

does  well  enough,  but  to  recognize  its  hopeless  infer- 
iority to  French  as  a  vehicle  of  expression  one  has  only 
to  take  an  essay  of  St.  Beuve  or  T.  Gautier,  or  Brun- 
etiere  in  criticism,  and  one  of  Matthew  Arnold,  or 
Mr.  Hutton,  or  Burroughs,  or  Jeff  cries,  a  novel  of 
Maupassant,  Balzac,  George  Sand,  Pierre  Loti, 
Zola,  Victor  Hugo,  or  even  Dumas  and  one  of 
Thackeray,  Scott,  or  Dickens,  George  Elliot,  Haw- 
thorne, or  even  Mrs.  Ward.  There  is  an  incom- 
municable vitality  and  subtlety,  a  most  trans- 
cending unity  of  form  with  idea  both  in 
mere  vocabulary  and  in  construction  that  makes 
French  writing  in  prose  the  last  and  most  consummate 
product  of  man's  mentality  as  a  vehicle  of  thought. 

The  evolution  of  French  literature,  as  in  all  litera- 
tures, has  been  through  the  phases  of  First,  subject 
matter;  Second,  treatment;  Third,  style.  The  earliest 
writers  collect  stories,  incidents,  fables,  and  history, 
and  tell  what  they  know  of  the  things  in  nature  in  a 
simple  way;  then  follows  a  period  of  arrangement  and 
logical  disposition,  of  chronological  sequence  and  ref- 
erence of  like  to  like,  with  some  sense  or  appreciation 
of  effect,  of  mass,  of  detail,  and  lastly  the  processes 
of  refinement  bring  style,  the  collocation  and  succes- 
sion of  words,  the  structure  of  sentences,  the  involu- 

[128] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

tion  of  clauses  and  the  exact  reflection  in  language  of 
an  idea,  a  picture,  a  character,  a  period.  In  the  1 6th 
and  1  7th  centuries  there  were  the  chroniclers  Ville- 
hardouin,  Joinville,  Froissart,  Commynes,  2d  the  nar- 
rators and  poets,  Rabelais,  Villon,  Marot,  Palissy,  3d 
the  stylists  Ronsard,  Montluc,  d'Aubigne,  Mon- 
taigne, Racan,  Regnier,  Balzac  (a  prose  writer  of 
the  1  7th  century.) 

Albert  in  writing  of  the  origins  of  French  literature 
says  (LaLitterature  Francaise,  du  XVI  siecle,  Paul 
Albert,  p.  5)  "il  ne  faut  pas  non  plus  oublier  1'influ- 
ence  du  climat.  Le  notre  est  essentiellement  tempere ; 
nous  ne  connaissons  ni  les  froids  rigoureux,  ni  les 
chaleurs  excessives.  Notre  pays  est  a  la  fois  terre 
ferme,  et  pays  maritime.  II  ne  s'etend  pas  en  plaines 
infinJes,  d'une  monotome  morne;  il  n'est  pas  enserre, 
ecrase  par  des  montagnes  enormes.  Pas  d.  animaux 
gigantesque,  pas  de  bizarreries  naturelles.  Les  pro- 
ductions du  sol  sont  variees  et  simple.  Le  pays  se 
suffit  a  lui-meme.  II  a  du  ble,  il  a  du  vin,  des  forets, 
des  paturages.  Tout  est  mesure,  equilibre,  regulier- 
ement  proportionne,  rien  de  sublime  et  d,  extraordi- 
naire, mais  aussi  pas  de  lacunes  choquantes,  et  un  en- 
semble satisfaisant,  Si  la  force  et  la  sante  ne  resident 
point  dans  le  developpement  excessif  d'un  organe  par- 
ticulier,  mais  dans  la  proportion  et  le  jeu  harmonieux 

[129] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

de  tous  les  organes,  la  France  est  la  pays  le  mieux 
partage;  et  Ton  comprend  que  sa  litterature  soil  la 
plus  riche  et  la  mieux  equilibree  de  toutes  les  littera- 
tures  modernes." 

Here  again  we  meet  the  irrefragable  effort  to  trace 
the  moulding  influence  of  the  subject  matter.  For 
if  the  environment  of  a  race  forms  its  language,  it 
forms  its  ideas  by  a  psychology  as  subtle.  Its  charac- 
ter and  environment  are  subject  matter.  The  mind, 
the  writers,  are,  it  is  true,  the  result  of  mingled  blood 
and  the  composite  offspring  of  indefinite  and  insoluble 
fusions  of  cells  and  tissues,  and  the  qualifying  and  in- 
teracting germs  of  mother  and  father. 

Yet  back  of  all  physiological  factors,  remains  the 
procreant  cradle  of  air  and  earth  and  things.  So  far 
as  literature  is  concerned  there  is  no  escape  from  the 
controlling  powers  of  the  outside  world,  no  matter 
what  force  or  relevancy  one  tries  to  collect  from  the 
concession  to  the  existence  of  the  "categorical  impera- 
tive, "or  of  "ideas  a  priori.  "  The  color  of  the  mind, 
so  to  speak,  its  attitude,  its  felicity  of  feeling,  of  seeing, 
of  noting,  of  saying,  the  pattern  of  its  web,  the  in- 
flections of  its  sympathies,  its  humanity,  are  the  slowly 
matured  growth  from  the  incidence  and  the  reactions 
of  ages  of  climate  and  sustenance  and  history.  The 
mythology  of  a  race  is  a  function  of  its  country's 

[130] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

meteorology,  geology,  physiography ;  and  all  its  litera- 
ture finds,  by  an  endless  labyrinth  of  descending 
threads  of  derivation,  its  distant  roots  in  what  its  peo- 
ple saw,  and  felt,  and  did. 

Moods  come  with  the  rising  or  the  setting  sun,  with 
the  deathless  music  of  the  storm,  the  peering  bashful 
glance  of  spring,  the  balance  of  the  night  and  day,  the 
progression  of  all  the  symbols  of  childhood,  of  youth, 
of  manhood,  of  age ;  and  moods  are  literature. 

If  as  Taine  says  "the  proper  office  of  literature  is  to 
take  note  of  sentiments"  and  if  our  own  somewhat 
ornamented  image  is  recognized  or  accepted,  viz.  that 
"literature  is  a  plant  growing  in  the  soil  of  history, 
bearing  flowers  of  ideation,  spirituality  and  artistic 
beauty,"  then  literature  does  become  quite  reasonably 
and  unfailingly  dependent  upon  moods.  That  is  so 
far  as  moods  are  made  to  be  mental  states  advancing 
from  mere  emotional  atmospheres  through  more  pro- 
nounced movements  and  heapings  up  of  ideas  and 
feelings  to  the  brilliancy  of  rapid  and  productive  in- 
tellectual work. 

Newton's  Principia  and  Laplace's  Mecanique 
Celeste  have  literary  value,  though  one  would  hardly, 
by  reason  of  their  exalted  and  profound  mathematical 
nature  assign  to  them  the  literary  significance  of 
Dante's  Divina  Commedia,  Petrarch's  Decameron, 
Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales,  Cervantes  Don  Quix- 

[131] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ote,  Scott's  Heart  of  Midlothian,  or  Emerson's  Es- 
says. They  were,  however,  the  products,  the  out- 
come of  moods  which  in  this  case  controlled  the  whole 
lives  of  these  marvelous  thinkers,  though  moods  deep- 
ening at  moments  to  the  extremest  depths  of  mental 
absorption  and  remoteness.  Indeed  even  these  recon- 
dite and  sublime  speculations  appeal  to  sentiment,  for 
as  Allison  says  in  his  Essay  on  Taste,  "the  anecdote 
of  a  late  celebrated  Mathematician  is  well  known, 
who  read  the  Paradise  Lost,  without  being  able  to 
discover  in  it  anything  that  was  sublime,  but  who  said 
that  he  could  never  read  the  queries  at  the  end  of 
Newton's  Optics,  without  feeling  his  hair  stand  on 
end,  and  his  blood  run  cold,"  a  certainly  very  un- 
compromising image  of  emotional  response. 

A  mood  we  commonly  and  naturally  regard  as  a 
temporary  condition,  a  fugitive  and  shifting  phase 
of  feeling  as  melancholy,  or  exulting,  or  dreary,  or 
repining,  and  it  blends,  in  our  thought,  with  poetical 
and  physiological  sensitivity  to  events  and  things.  It 
is  a  capricious  staying  in  a  certain  web  or  stage  of 
feeling  which  we  in  common  parlance  consider  tem- 
porary or  evanescent.  But  such  stages  of  feeling 
determine  creative  work  and  even  if  by  a  process  of 
exact  rigid  setting  down  to  tasks  of  invention — as  Poe 
describes  his  reasoned  out  artifices  of  construction  in 

[132] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

the  Raven — we  force  our  minds  into  literary  labor, 
and  eventually  thereby  add  to  the  sum  of  literary  ef- 
fects, we  shall  always  realize  that  a  favorable  mood 
helps  us  to  think  and  construct,  that  indeed  without  it 
or  without  working  ourselves  into  such  a  mood  we 
work  hampered  and  disabled. 

This  is  all  apropos  of  our  assertion  that  moods  are 
the  generative  occasions  of  literary  work,  and  because 
moods  are  themselves  symptoms  of  objective  influ- 
ences and  because  objective  influences  shape  language 
— have  shaped,  as  Albert  declares,  the  French  lan- 
guage— then  objective  influences  have  something  to 
do  or  all  to  do  with  literary  work,  and  in  an  especial 
way  therefore  subject  matter  does  the  same  thing. 
This  has  been  from  the  beginning  our  contention. 

So  far  as  scientific  works  can  be  classed  with  liter- 
ary productions  their  literary  character  is  due  to  the 
negotiable  element  of  literary  meaning  in  the  subject 
matter  they  contain.  A  treatise  on  birds  will  afford 
more  room  for  an  appeal  to  sentiment  than  a  discus- 
sion of  mineral  species  or  a  review  of  chemical  prin- 
ciples ;  a  work  on  flowers  furnishes  wider  scope  for  the 
literary  faculty  than  an  essay  on  quaternions  or  a  re- 
view of  commercial  statistics.  In  all  writing  the  qual- 
ity of  style,  and  the  charm  and  lucidity  and  depth  of 
treatment  supervene  to  give  a  literary  expression  to 

[133] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

almost  any  topic,  no  matter  how  remote  its  subject 
matter  seems  to  be  from  the  proper  texts  of  literature. 

Imagery,  exact  and  illuminating  language,  the  very 
cadence  of  sentences,  the  choice  of  epithet  and  de- 
scriptive terms,  the  regular  and  informing  development 
of  the  theme  convey  literary  impressions.  This  is 
inseparable  from  the  genius  of  language,  and  the  gen- 
ius of  mind,  but  back,  far  back  in  the  primitive  areas 
of  linguistic  growth  and  mental  evolution,  the  subject 
matter  appears  as  the  pregnant  source  of  ideas  and 
words. 

Imagine  a  being  capable  of  ideas,  of  emotional  re- 
sponses to  external  irritants  of  speech,  possessed  of  the 
senses  and  endowed  with  sensibility  and  put  him  in 
an  illimitable  void  of  atmosphere  and  leave  him  there. 
Would  the  conjunction  of  air  and  mind  be  likely  to 
generate  literature?  Never.  Mind  is  a  percipient 
but  its  percipiency  hangs  around  the  neck  of  an  ex- 
ternal world  with  its  physical  and  moral  and  social 
facts.  Disjoin  them  and  so  far  as  literature  is  con- 
cerned, in  any  real  sense  of  the  term,  there  is  utter 
blankness  and  silence.  Even  those  sentiments  which 
are  supposed  to  be  inherent  and  less  dependable  upon 
external  excitants — the  religious — would  be  deprived 
of  literary  life,  and  ideation  itself  remain  sterile,  numb 
and  unproductive.  Like  a  closed  chrysalis,  which 

[134] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

can  never  open  in  a  vacuum  or  at  zero,  the  mind 
placed  in  either  without  colors  or  sounds  or  things, 
movements,  acts,  events,  would  stay  congealed, 
motionless  and  barren. 

In  the  movement  from  the  first  stages  of  narrative 
where  subject  matter  dominates,  through  the  subse- 
quent refinements  of  statement  and  description  we 
reach  style  and  treatment,  in  which  the  personal  ele- 
ment of  literature  belonging,  (as  we  have  seen ;  Chap. 
1  st)  both  to  the  era  and  the  individual,  is  reflected. 
French  literature,  the  French  language  has  attained 
the  consummate  flower  of  expression.  Its  form  is  un- 
approachable. Greek  had  form  and  a  form  of  unmis- 
takable and  convincing  loveliness  but  Greek  for  mod- 
ern ideas,  for  the  intricacies  of  thought  and  swaying 
impulsiveness  and  insatiable  realism  of  our  day  would 
have  experienced  in  its  writers  a  strange  inconven- 
ience as  a  medium  of  literature. 

But  French,  insinuating,  insidious,  fashioned  in 
phrase,  as  in  word  for  the  mirroring  of  shades  and, 
so  to  speak,  attitudes  of  thought,  catching  in  its  subtle 
arrangement  of  letters  the  hues  of  myriad  meanings 
of  pleasure  and  pain  and  criticism  and  study  and  color 
and  all  things  social,  animate,  and  human,  this  most 
excellent  speech  seizes  all  that  is  seen  or  imaginable 
and  throws  it  on  the  printed  page  scarcely  robbed,  by 

[135] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

that  transition,  of  a  shade  even  of  its  absolute  verity 
and  value.  No  tongue  but  French  would  have  an- 
swered the  necessities  of  Voltaire's  mind  and  none 
else  could  have  embodied  its  wit  and  license  so 
acutely. 

Nothing  but  French  would  have  permitted  Rous- 
seau to  give  to  his  composition  as  Joubert  has  said, 
"such  a  charm,  sweetness  so  penetrating,  energy  so 
puissant  that  his  writings  have  an  effect  upon  the  soul 
something  like  that  of  those  illicit  pleasures  which  steal 
away  our  taste  and  intoxicate  our  reason,"  and  in  the 
exquisite  pictures — pictures  so  true,  so  suggestive 
that  they  half  deceive  the  eye  that  reads  by  the  affirm- 
ation of  the  eye  that  sees — of  Pierre  Loti,  nothing 
provided  by  men  to  use,  as  words,  but  this  supreme 
language  could  have  placed  them  in  words  scarcely 
jarred  from  their  proportions  as  they  existed  in  the 
mind  of  the  author.  Imagine  an  English  writer  hold- 
ing the  interest  of  the  reader  in  a  narrative  of  such  fra- 
gile topics  as  Les  Desirs  de  Jean  Servien,  which  Ana- 
tole  France,  by  an  indubitable  delicacy,  has  made 
exquisite. 

As  literature  passes  into  the  last  stages  of  its  pro- 
gressive elaboration  the  subject  matter  still  holds  its 
sway  over  literary  productivity  but  in  a  different  way 
from  its  control  in  more  youthful  periods.  Whereas 

[136] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

in  its  beginnings  literature  fills  its  pages  with  events 
and  personages  their  succession  and  nature,  in  its  re- 
condite phases  as  it  approaches  the  highest  felicity 
of  expression  in  later  periods  it  dwells  on  the  psycho- 
logical effects  of  an  event,  or  a  personage,  or  scene, 
or  it  seizes  for  portraiture  some  picture,  and  conveys 
it  to  our  minds  by  an  invincible  precision  of  language. 
Literature  improves,  and  it  improves  in  the  direction 
of  analysis  and  intellectual  and  emotional  richness  and 
depth. 

The  novels  of  Balzac,  Hugo,  and  Daudet,  and 
Zola,  and  Maupassant,  are  incalculably  better  than 
those  of  Madame  de  La  Fayette,  and  the  narrative 
of  Pierre  Loti  in  sensibility,  delicious  freshness,  and 
the  keen  propriety  of  words  much  finer  in  essential 
verbal  accuracy  and  subjective  power  over  that  of 
Saint  Simon,  Fenelon,  La  Bruyere.  Language  in 
France  has  seemed  all  the  time  to  gain  in  intensity, 
in  colorature,  in  its  miscellaneous  ability  to  catch  the 
shades  and  depths  of  thought.  Indeed  this  is  so 
everywhere.  Language  feels  the  influence  of  pro- 
gressive culture  of  knowledge,  and  as  it  itself  is 
thought,  expands  and  evolutes,  unfolds,  along  the 
widening  and  rising  areas  of  understanding  and  feel- 
ing. Not  exactly  that  new  words  arise  (though  that 
is  true  also)  but  new  meanings,  new  arrangements 

[137] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

grow  and  the  vocabulary  of  a  tongue  seems  increas- 
ingly used  in  ingenious,  quickening,  and  alert  phrases. 
It  is  certainly  impossible  today  to  read  with  any 
patience  the  weak  wearisome  and  vapid  works  of 
Bulwer  Lytton,  his  stupid  and  vaporous  dialogue, 
the  aimless  silly  plot,  the  artificial  elegance  of  insin- 
cere phraseology,  the  sickening  cadences  and  the 
empty  periods  of  adjectives  and  paraphrases.  Think 
of  Kipling,  of  Stevenson,  of  Norris,  of  Wister,  Caine, 
Harris,  Smith,  London,  Wharton,  in  comparison, 
though,  of  course  Bulwer  had  contemporaries  who 
could  startle  the  slowest  minds  into  attention  by 
power  and  incision. 

In  France  this  exhilarating  progress  dates  perhaps 
from  the  tumult  of  the  conflict  between  the  classic 
and  romantic  schools,  a  conflict  started  before  the 
revolution  and  found  already  raging — though  hope- 
lessly with  the  advantages  all  on  one  side — in  the 
classic  discussions  under  "le  grand  monarque"  as  to 
the  dictatorship  of  Aristotle  over  the  range  and 
method  of  all  literary  invention. 

French  literature  suffered  in  the  1  7th  century  the 
affliction  of  the  veneering  and  formal  processes  which 
in  England  had  succeeded  the  splendid  and  almost 
profligate  exuberance  of  invention  and  writing  of  the 
Elizabethan  day.  In  France  the  tendencies  of  one 

[138] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

side  of  the  French  literary  activity  to  refinement,  to 
verbal  accuracy  and  microscopic  precision  of  phrase 
became  enormously  abetted  by  the  profusion  and 
enamelled  elegance  of  a  sumptuous  court,  in  which 
the  incense  of  adulation,  ridiculous  and  artificial  as- 
criptions of  power  were  sedulously  offered  to  an 
egotist,  a  provincial,  and  a  bigot,  Louis  XIV.  Only 
the  delicacies  of  speech,  the  Corinthian  ornaments  of 
epithet,  the  lacquered  surfaces  of  brilliant  dialogue 
were  tolerated,  and  the  wide  world  of  nature,  of  con- 
trasts, of  rude  and  savage  strength,  of  abrupt  and 
blended  beauty,  the  world  of  unaffected  and  natural 
passion  impulse  and  sympathy  was  shut  out,  decried, 
rejected.  "Et  nous  voila  condamnes  aux  Neptune, 
aux  Venus,  aux  Flore,  aux  Pomone,  aux  Ceres,  aux 
Apollon.  Les  plus  belles,  les  plus  vivantes  creations 
du  genie  antique  sont  transformees  en  machines,  en 
recettes,  en  ficelles."  (Albert). 

With  the  disappearance  of  the  overshadowing  in- 
fluences of  the  court,  the  rising  indictments  by  public 
sentiment  of  the  corrupt  and  brutal  tyranny  of  a  class, 
the  irrepressible  intellectual  revolt  against  boudoir 
rules  of  composition,  and  the  emergence  of  new  minds 
not  strapped  into  moulds  of  approved  style,  but  lib- 
erated by  sentiment  and  indignation  from  the  cere- 
ments of  authority,  French  literature  ran  wild  in  a 

[139] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

vast  fertility  of  contrasted  composition.  It,  however, 
always  remained  itself,  expressive,  adaptable,  lit  up 
with  the  radiance  of  spirit  ( esprit)  and  intuition.  But 
subject  matter  pervasively  made  itself  felt  in  all  the 
classes  of  French  literature  and  always  had  an  in- 
fluence in  both  style  and  treatment,  personal  as  these 
two  features  of  literary  work  are. 

When  the  early  chroniclers  wrote,  the  wars  and 
intrigues  the  tournaments  and  court  revelries  gave 
their  writing  a  simple  gayety  and  a  direct  interest; 
they  are  illuminated  trains  of  events  and  personages. 
There  is  no  intricacy,  little  commentary,  an  unfailing 
acquiescence,  the  loyalty  of  subjects,  a  keen  and  ob- 
vious patriotism,  and  abundance  of  pictures.  When 
society  and  the  kingdom  had  become  more  elabor- 
ated, as  institutions,  study,  philosophy,  science  were 
introduced,  and  the  unfolding  mind  of  men  reflected 
in  reliefs,  in  shadows,  in  high  lights,  the  variety  of 
the  new  interests,  the  new  suggestions,  and  specula- 
tions, then  the  chroniclers  of  the  1 7th  century,  as 
Cardinal  de  Retz,  La  Rouchfoucald  in  (his  Max- 
imes) ,  Madame  de  Motteville,  Saint  Simon,  become 
introspective,  more  critical,  reveal  analyses  and  psy- 
chological portraiture. 

They  assume  a  modern  phase.  Their  writing  in- 
volves more  distinctively  literary  procedure  and  liter- 

[140] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

ary  thought.  The  subject  matter  is  more  compli- 
cated, motives  of  conduct  have  become  more  subtle 
and  confusing,  new  vices  arose,  new  indulgences, 
running  alongside  of  an  improving  art  and  industry, 
have  expanded  men's  appetites;  then  are  discovered 
new  facts,  new  worlds;  study  and  learning  have 
awakened  a  new  ambition,  and  taste;  and  audiences 
pleased  in  refined  ways  with  drama  and  poetry  and 
fancy  applaud  the  powers  of  the  gratified  authors. 
The  pages  of  these  later  historians  show  all  this. 
They  are  more  individual,  more  intricate,  they  dis- 
play critical  skill,  and  th,ey  aim  at  artistic  effects. 
They  exhibit  the  stretched  and  deepened  scope  of  the 
subject  matter. 

The  poets  of  the  earlier  periods  of  French  litera- 
ture are  shown  to  us  as  experimental  rhymsters  elicit- 
ing new  tones  and  singing  with  sweeter  phrase  as 
they  get  control  of  the  divine  instrument  of  poetry. 
Ronsard,  Villon,  Marot,  all  take  love  generally  as  a 
theme  and  from  its  very  simplicity  as  a  primal  passion 
sing  themselves  simply  with  intermittent  inspiration, 
with  many  renewed  attempts  at  metrical  modelling 
and  form. 

Fantasies  and  allegories  amused  the  court  and  the 
legends  of  the  ancients  furnished  to  the  more  ambi- 
tious themes  of  perennial  interest.  Palissy  alone 

[141] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

touched  a  deeper  note  by  reason  of  his  own  fervid 
and  unaffected  nature.  Montaigne  was  himself  an 
untrammelled  spirit  and  anticipated  the  later  day,  the 
Gallic  sap  of  his  nature  bursting  forth  in  literary  leaf- 
age full  of  unexpected  and  individual  promise.  The 
coteries  of  the  1' Hotel  de  Rambouillet  furnished  new 
conceits  of  word  play  and  the  travesties  of  fashionable 
skill,  in  saying  things. 

The  French  poets  of  the  1  7th  century  are  closeted 
within  the  walls  of  a  classic  garden,  monotonously 
decorated  and  patterned  in  stiff  and  chastely  ornate 
plots,  and  as  they  have  one  subject  matter  their  poetry 
is  itself  starched  with  regulated  epithets,  exquisitely 
constructed  like  a  joiner's  table,  but  mechanical,  tire- 
somely  correct  and  lifeless.  As  Albert  most  admir- 
ably says  'est  il  un  poete  au  XVIIe  siecle  qui,  n.ait 
rime  quelque  madrigal  ou  quelque  somnet  en  1'hon- 
neur  d'une  Iris,  d'une  Chloris,  d'une  Philis  quelcon- 
que?  Chez  tous  un  jargon  con  venue,  des  metaphores 
et  des  comparaisons  banales,  le  soleil,  les  astres,  la 
rose,  les  lis,  1'albatre,  1'ivoire,  le  corail ;  des  desespoirs 
connus,  des  regrets  qui  ont  deja  servi,  des  tourments 
dont  le  programme  est  depuis  longtemps  arrete.  On 
puisse  la  passion  avec  toutes  ses  phrases  at  ses  orages 
dans  les  modeles  du  genre;  on  fait  un  agreeable  me- 
lange de  Catulle,  d'Ovide,  de  Tibulle;  les  erudits  se 

[142] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

risquant  jusqu,  a  imiter  Anacreon.  II  ne  manque  a  ces 
rimeurs  qu,  une  chose;  le  sentiment.  Le  bonhomme 
La  Fontaine  seul,  qu,  on  ne  prend  pas  au  serieux,  a 
jete  ca  et  la  une  note  emue  qui  vibre  encore.  Lui  seul 
aussi  est  sorti  de  I'horizon  etroit  de  Versailles,  et  a  vu 
autre  chose  dans  la  nature  que  les  merveilles  du 
genie  de  Le  Notre  et  de  La  Quintinie.  Tous 
ces  poetes  meprisent  les  champs:  n'est  ce  pas 
la  qu,  on  est  expose  a  rencontrer  les  animaux 
farouches  dont  parle  La  Bruyere?  On  chante 
Ceres,  Flore  et  Pomone,  mais  on  ne  sait  com- 
ment vient  le  ble;  on  peuple  les  forets  de  nymphes 
et  de  dryades,  mais  on  ne  sait  pas  distinguer  un 
chene  d'une  hetre.  II  n'y  a  pas  de  paysan  ni  de  pay- 
sanne;  tout  devient  berger  et  bergere"  (Albert  p. 
416). 

Corneille  and  Racine  furnished  the  French  stage 
with  those  sublimated  dramas  which  so  please  the 
French,  and  which  were  only  concerned  with  the 
lofty  emotions;  dignified  and  heroic  dilemmas  of  ac- 
tion, carried  along  upon  a  stream  of  classic  declama- 
tion in  which  nothing  common  or  even  very  natur- 
al was  permitted  to  mix,  lest  the  adulteration  might 
lessen  the  shining  and  eloquent  periods,  lest  the  audi- 
ence might  be  aware  of  a  sudden  disillusion  in  find- 

[143] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ing  themselves  listening  to  normal  and  human  char- 
acters. 

The  subject  matter,  heroes  and  heroines,  kings, 
queens,  the  immolation  of  faithful  lovers,  the  perfidy 
of  aristocratic  scamps,  a  certain  unmistakable  social 
elevation  of  every  one,  and  the  strict  exclusive  atmos- 
phere of  one  spot  and  one  time,  influenced  the  exalted 
style,  the  interminable  dialogue,  the  tone  pitched  to 
a  key  of  irreconcilable  and  austere  nobility  of  feeling. 

Moliere  filled  the  stage  with  more  living  and  pleas- 
ing and  natural  or  at  least  ordinary  pictures,  his  situ- 
ations in  burlesque  mimicry  of  life,  the  genial  gayety 
and  wit  of  his  dialogue,  the  irony,  moving  like  shift- 
ing wind  over  a  lake  of  water,  in  ripples  or  in  threat- 
ening waves  of  censure,  comported  with  a  subject 
matter  taken  from  the  realities  about  him,  from  draw- 
ing rooms  and  streets  and  banquets,  from  the  facts  of 
society  and  the  traits  of  individuals  known  to  exist, 
or  at  least  capable  of  existing. 

As  the  1 8th  century  increased  in  years  the  mind  of 
France  was  employed  in  vast  philosophic  prepara- 
tions for  that  greatest  of  modern  historical  events,  the 
Revolution.  The  rights  of  men,  the  orders  and  ra- 
tionale of  governments,  the  spirit  of  law,  employed 
the  thoughts  of  Montesquieu.  Liberty  of  opinion, 
liberty  of  action,  equality  in  civic  recognition,  the 

[144] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

vanities  of  dogma,  the  emancipation  of  the  mind,  the 
repulse  of  superstition,  and  theological  domination, 
the  material  origins  of  society,  the  individual,  his  dig- 
nity, his  aims,  his  importance,  these  engaged  the  poig- 
nant and  comprehending  study  of  Voltaire,  and  an 
expression,  as  clear  and  acute,  made  known  to  all  the 
world,  his  results,  his  conclusions.  The  phases  of 
natural  man,  the  charter  of  the  emotions,  the  freedom 
of  aboriginal  life,  the  sovereignty  of  natural  feeling, 
the  exposure  of  deformities  in  society,  a  return  to  prim- 
itive methods,  even  primitive  nakedness,  such  things 
worked  in  Rousseau  the  springs  of  feeling  which 
caused  him  to  pour  out  the  torrents  of  his  fervid  elo- 
quence, those  pages  of  blazing,  melting,  intoxicating 
French. 

Diderot  was  there,  the  patient,  inexhaustible,  the 
designing  sustaining  mind  and  heart,  chaotic,  un- 
bridled, penetrated  with  new  visions  of  changed  es- 
tates, a  renovated  kingdom  amongst  men,  an  enlight- 
ened and  sympathetic  state.  D'Alembert  was  there, 
the  sufferer  and  the  magnanimous,  still  more  noble, 
more  earnest,  working  in  the  fields  of  science  search- 
ing out  the  secrets  of  that  Truth  which  should  make 
all  men  free.  Buffon  was  there  pretentiously  display- 
ing his  eloquence  in  magnificent  schemes  of  cosmic 
evolution,  dressing  the  sober,  simple  and  deep  facts  of 

[145] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

nature  in  rhetoric  and  verbal  symphonies.  Marmon- 
tel,  LaHarpe,  Beaumarchais,  were  all  there  reflect- 
ing the  new  attitudes  of  men  to  the  nation  as  a  whole, 
and  from  the  wider  outlooks  catching  at  least  some 
phases  of  the  new  life,  perhaps  distorted,  grotesque, 
or  even  still  adulterated  with  the  tinsel  and  formal 
ornament  of  the  past. 

The  personal  elements  of  the  Time  and  public 
Taste,  and  the  Temperament  in  the  author  helped 
to  form  the  literary  output,  its  form,  and  treatment; 
but  inasmuch  as  all  Literature  is  the  reaction  between 
the  percipient  and  the  subject  matter  this  reaction 
may  be  indefinitely  varied,  and  yet  the  features  of  the 
Subject  Matter,  are  the  irreducible  nuclei  of  the  re- 
action, whatever  form,  color,  turn,  expression,  con- 
sistency, and  texture  the  literary  products  take.  As 
the  history  of  the  world  itself  extends,  a  great  increase 
of  subject  matter  necessarily  follows,  as  research 
brings  into  view  unexpected  and  hitherto  unknown 
incidents  and  aspects  of  that  very  history,  its  contents, 
and  illusions,  the  range  of  the  choice  of  subjects  for 
authors  is  enormously  increased.  The  wider  culture 
and  the  mere  fact  of  temporal  accretion  was  all  the 
time  storing  up  fresh  matter  for  literature ;  and  knowl- 
edge, extravagantly  pushing  its  conquests  and  enlarg- 
ing its  stores,  was  offering  to  imagination  and  reason, 

[146] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

invention  and  mere  curiosity,  a  greater  and  greater 
number  of  texts  and  suggestions. 

The  1 9th  century  was  to  outrun  all  the  sections  of 
previous  time  in  the  variety  and  the  extent  of  its  spec- 
ulations and  resulted,  in  the  complexity  of  its  social 
currents,  in  the  intricacy  of  its  psychological  feelings, 
in  its  sympathy  with  widest  contrasts  of  social  states, 
in  its  thirst  for  novelty,  in  its  successful  study  of  ver- 
bal uses,  in  its  heterogeneity  of  phenomena,  in  its  stu- 
pendous scientific  preeminence,  its  humor,  its  absolute 
divorce  from  convention  or  precedent  or  authority, 
its  wild  and  jubilant  mutiny  against  conservatism  and 
ponderous  pretentions  in  opinion  or  in  the  individual, 
its  realism,  its  good  sense,  the  thousand  and  one  new 
avenues  to  writing  and  thinking  it  has  opened;  in  all 
these  things  the  1 9th  century  rises  gigantically  over  all 
competition. 

This  wide  assemblage  of  topics,  the  effort  at  liber- 
ation from  the  narrow  limits  of  a  formal  elegance  in 
style,  and  from  the  restrictions  of  the  rigorously  im- 
posed categories  of  dignified  subjects  met  with  a 
deeper  and  more  exasperated  resistance  in  France 
than  in  England.  It  is  true  that  in  England  as  Mr.  E. 
Gosse  has  shown,  the  construction  of  a  polished  style 
the  imposition  of  a  metrical  rule  had  accompanied  a 

[147] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

revolt  against  the  luxuriance  and  profusion  of  Eliza- 
bethan composition. 

But  it  resulted  as  a  pruning  down  and  weeding 
out,  a  dilution  and  repression  of  that  riotous  power  of 
language  which  accompanied  an  equally  (at  least 
in  the  earlier  phases  of  this  epoch)  vigorous  activity 
of  thought. 

This  discerning  critic's  characterization  of  the  lit- 
erary situation  in  England  is  well  worth  considera- 
tion. He  says  "but  this  change  of  form  was  accom- 
panied by  an  equally  extraordinary  change  of  subject 
and  of  treatment.  Here  again,  where  all  had  been 
liberty,  where  no  bounds  of  space  or  time,  no  regula- 
tions of  any  kind,  had  curbed  the  erratic  inclinations 
of  the  poets,  they  suddenly  and  willfully  shut  them- 
selves up  between  walls  of  rule,  and  abandoned  the 
wild  woods  for  stately  and  mechanical  circuits  around 
the  box-walks  of  a  labyrinth.  For  the  direct  appeal 
to  nature,  and  the  naming  of  specific  objects,  they  sub- 
stituted generalities  and  second-hand  allusions.  They 
no  longer  mentioned  the  gilly  flower  and  the  daffodil, 
but  permitted  themselves  a  general  reference  to  Flora's 
vernal  wreath.  It  was  vulgar  to  say  that  the  moon 
was  rising,  the  gentlemanly  expression  was  Cynthia 
is  lifting  her  silver  horn.  Women  became  nymphs, 

[148] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

in  this  new  phraseology,  fruits  became  the  treasures  of 
Pomono,  a  horse  became  the  impatient  courser. 

"The  classical  poet  must  not  only  avoid  the  direct 
word,  he  must  select  one  circumlocution  and  keep  to 
it.  His  principle  is  restriction,  ingenuity,  and  strait- 
laced  elegance ;  the  romantic  poet's  principle  is  liberty 
even  though  it  lead  to  license. 

The  secret  of  the  enigma  that  a  whole  generation 
meekly  and  even  eagerly  consented  to  clip  its  own 
wings  and  subside  into  servitude,  is  primarily  to  be 
found  in  the  word  we  have  just  used,  license.  The 
people  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  weary  of  lib- 
erty, weary  of  the  unmitigated  rage  of  the  chromat- 
ists,  cloyed  with  the  roses  and  the  spices  and  the  kisses 
of  the  lyrists,  tired  of  being  carried  over  the  universe 
and  up  and  down  the  avenues  of  history  at  the  freak 
of  every  irresponsible  rhymster.  Literature  had  been 
set  open  to  all  the  breezes  of  heaven  by  the  bluster- 
ing and  glittering  Elizabethans,  and  in  the  hands  of 
their  less  gifted  successors  it  was  fast  declining  into  a 
mere  cave  of  the  Winds.  The  last  efflorescence  of 
the  spirit  of  humanism  had  taken  that  strange  form 
which  it  found  in  the  hands  of  Lyly,  Marini,  and 
Gongora,  and  the  brief  vogue  of  this  wonderful 
heresy,  with  its  extravagance,  affectation  and  preci- 

[149] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

osity,  had  but  hastened  on  the  certain  and  necessary 
reaction." 

In  France  no  Elizabethan  age  preceded  the  chaste 
sometimes  frigid,  sometimes  limpidly  intellectual  per- 
fection of  French  literature  under  Louis  XIV.  The 
mental  process  in  France  which  at  length  crystallized 
the  language  into  exact  literary  types  and  distilled, 
refined,  and  clarified  its  mere  verbal  form  were  con- 
genital and  instinctive  tendencies  belonging  to  the  cre- 
ators and  possessors  of  a  tongue,  whose  genius  is 
exquisite  accuracy  of  expression,  with  an  aptitude  for 
proportion,  balance,  regime  and  logic. 

As  Albert  so  penetratingly  says,  in  the  classic 
French  'Toeuvre  se  deroule  lentement,  regulierement ; 
elle  charme  les  yeux  par  l'harmonie  de  ses  proportions, 
la  dignite,  la  noblesse  soutenue ;  il  s'en  degage  comme 
une  placidite  penetrante." 

This  classicism  became  endeared  to  Frenchmen, 
because  with  all  its  artifice  it  also  had  lineal  claims 
upon  the  origins  of  the  language  itself.  The  storm 
burst  as  the  1 9th  century  developed,  and  its  immensity 
of  ideas  and  knowledge  overwhelmingly  demanded 
entrance  into  literature  over  wider  avenues,  or  indeed 
over  and  by  any  kind  of  path  which  would  afford 
them  access  to  the  ears  and  minds  of  man.  The 
stiff  and  starched,  or  the  restrained  and  stately  style 

[150] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

found  itself  suddenly  confronted  with  a  babel  of 
sounds,  a  horde  of  new  propositions  in  literary  form, 
a  tumult  of  articulations,  like  the  multitude  of  new 
things  and  feelings  in  which  the  nation,  the  race,  the 
world,  gloriously  revelled. 

The  mutilation,  or  disordering,  or  adulteration,  or 
rejection  of  a  style  and  treatment  which  had  been 
developed  at  a  period  of  French  national  greatness, 
which  was  looked  upon  as  an  epoch  of  literary  su- 
premacy and  which  intrinsically  possessed  a  unique 
interest,  could  not  be  readily  borne  with  patience  or 
self  control  by  those  who  realized  the  extreme  verbal 
perfection  of  the  old  masters. 

But  the  contention  of  these  recalcitrants  was  hope- 
less. New  subject  matter  had  changed  the  condi- 
tions of  literary  production,  and  a  response  was  inev- 
itable. The  throb  of  new  ideas  expressed  the  in- 
fluence of  new  surroundings ;  new  pictures,  new  facts. 
In  France  it  was  met  with  reproaches,  an  offended 
pride,  excitement  and  abuse,  disdain  and  the  shrug- 
ged shoulders  of  mournful  contempt. 

In  the  theatre  the  appearance  of  the  new  roman- 
ticism evoked  a  physical  rebuke.  The  new  men 
affected  libertinism,  and  disarray  in  dress,  in  person, 
in  deportment.  The  forces  clashed,  and  Dumas  in 
his  Memoires  describes  the  fisticuffs  and  hisses,  the 

[151] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

tumult  of  slang  and  mudslinging.  The  plays  went  on 
in  a  storm  of  attack  and  defence.  Successful  strategy 
introduced  to  the  theatre  the  advocates  of  either  side, 
and  in  a  whirlwind  of  denunciation  and  of  applause 
the  bewildered  actors  stumbled  through  their  roles, 
while  these  enthusiasts  belabored  each  other  with 
vocatives  and  cudgels. 

Gautier  (1'Histoire  du  Romanticism)  has  drawn 
and  crayoned  the  portraits  of  the  little  group  of  radi- 
cals which  gathered  around  Victor  Hugo,  and  of 
which  he  was  a  unit,  and  who  all  embodied  the  sen- 
timent and  hopes  of  Romanticism.  Eccentric,  pas- 
sionate, nervous  exponents  of  the  "new  era,"  delight- 
ing in  social  heresies,  in  personal  trademarks,  full  of 
mysterious  secrets  and  threading,  in  literary  compo- 
sition, dark  or  twilight  avenues  of  wonderment  and 
melancholy  and  confusion.  Touching  and  beautiful 
was  the  mutual  devotion  of  these  men  whose  emotions 
and  thoughts  twined  about  each  other,  and  by  some 
instinctive  contraction  of  protection  linked  them  all 
together  in  a  sweet  and  diversified  friendship. 

Certainly  Theophile  Gautier  intended,  upon  that 
momentous  evening  when  the  Ernani  of  Victor  Hugo 
was  given  at  the  theatre,  amidst  the  clash  and  warfare 
of  opposing  tastes,  to  express  the  emancipation  of  the 
coming  era  by  thoroughly  outraging  the  timidity  of 

[152] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

the  past.  His  red  vest,  grey  trousers,  black  velvet 
stripe  down  the  latter,  black  coat,  grey  overcoat  with 
green  satin  borders,  his  collar  ribbon,  were  flagrant 
and  blinding  insults  upon  customary  decorum  and  it 
was  a  symbol  of  the  new  fury  for  literary  liberty  or 
libertinism.  As  Gautier  himself  says  most  relishingly, 
*'oui,  nous  regardames  avec  un  sang-froid  parfait  tou- 
tes  ces  larves  du  passe  et  de  la  routine,  tous  ces  enne- 
mis  de  1'art,  de  1'ideal,  de  la  liberte  et  de  la  poesie, 
qui  cherchaient  de  leurs  debiles  mains  tremblotantes 
a  tenir  fermee  la  porte  de  1'avenir;  et  nous  sentions 
dans  notre  coeur  un  sauvage  desir  de  lever  leur  scalp 
avec  notre  tomahawk  pour  en  orner  notre  ceinture; 
mais  a  cette  lutte,  nous  eussions  courir  le  risque  de 
cueillir  moins  de  chevelures  que  de  perruques;  car  si 
elle  raillait  1'ecole  moderne  sur  ses  cheveux,  1'ecole 
classique  en  revanche  etalait  au  balcon  et  a  la  galerie 
du  Theatre  Francaise  une  collection  de  tetes  chauves 
pareille  au  chapelet  de  cranes  de  la  deesse  Dourga." 

The  nineteenth  century  moved  on  in  literature,  as 
in  science,  in  art,  in  music,  in  life,  in  social  usage, 
bringing  at  each  new  step  a  fresh  accession  of  imag- 
ery, of  fancy,  of  illustration.  It  opened  up  again,  be- 
fore eyes  grown  torpid  in  an  artificial  light,  the  radi- 
ance of  nature;  and  with  the  new  powers  of  vision, 
with  new  vistas  and  an  inextricable  profusion  of  the 

[153] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

wonderful  fruits  of  thought  suddenly  or  slowly  en- 
tranced the  awakened  and  fervently  responsive  minds 
of  men. 

Berlioz  in  musical  composition,  Delacroix,  Rous- 
seau, in  painting,  Barye  in  sculpture  and  all  those 
poets  from  Chenier  to  Vigny  and  de  Mussel  whom 
Gautier  has  rehearsed  in  his  "Les  Progres  de  la  Poe- 
sie  Francaise"  with  such  opulent  and  bewitching  dic- 
tion, all  extended  the  bounteous  influence  of  the  wider 
vision.  And  the  modern  period  from  1830  on  pro- 
duced each  year  new  treasures  of  creative  genius. 
The  modern  French  novel  and  drama  were  born  and 
Balzac,  Victor  Hugo,  Dumas,  Daudet,  Maupassant, 
Coulevent,  Ohnet,  Zola,  Tinseau,  Merimee,  Loti, 
Sardou,  Flaubert,  Scribe,  Feuillet,  Cherbuliez,  Bour- 
get,  gathered  into  the  pages  of  French  literature  their 
wide  and  sometimes  dangerous  impressions  of  life,  ex- 
pressed with  a  new  and  dazzling  power  of  language, 
that  makes  all  other  writing  pale,  insipid,  stuttering, 
and  fugitive. 

That  art  of  expression  whose  refinement  the  class- 
icists of  the  1  7th  century  had  so  imperiously  insisted 
on,  reached  in  French  writing  of  this  new  day  a  most 
intricate  perfection.  It  became  intellectually  expres- 
sive and  emotionally  convincing.  It  seized  the  verbal 
and  structural  contents  of  this  great  tongue  and  under 

[154] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

the  inspiration  of  deeper  insight,  sympathetic  feeling, 
and  an  immensely  perfected  technique  of  invention, 
made  the  pages  burn  and  sparkle  and  sing  with  unac- 
customed linguistic  beauties.  The  vocabularies  of 
the  modern  French  writers  were  clustered,  grape 
laden  vineyards,  compared  with  the  too  carefully 
pruned  hothouse  growths  of  their  predecessors ;  rush- 
ing and  broad  rivers  compared  with  confined  and 
monotonously  regulated  streams,  like  surveyed  canals, 
of  the  &e//e  period  of  le  grand  monarque. 

Rabelais  in  the  early  emergence  of  French  writing 
recalls  the  modern  profusion,  the  eccentricity  of  his 
genius,  a  certain  unappeasible  madness  for  novelty 
and  outrage  made  his  work  in  its  superficial  naked 
exuberance  suggestive  of  the  richness  of  the  moderns. 
Yet  a  very  brief  discrimination  separates  Rabelais 
from  the  moderns  by  a  wide  and  impassible  distance. 
Rabelais  is  crude,  profuse,  and  disorderly,  certainly 
with  both  humor  and  learning.  The  modern  is  won- 
derfully expressive  and  because  his  expression  searches 
out  the  last  mote  or  molecule  of  meaning  in  a  situa- 
tion or  a  picture,  or  reproduces  both  with  broad  vital- 
izing touches  of  verbal  color,  he  also  is  rich, — but  in 
the  one  case  it  is  the  richness  of  profligate  and  inar- 
tistic misuse  of  language,  in  the  other  the  richness  of  a 
chaste  though  searching  adequacy. 

[155] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

But  again  here  we  have  the  irreducible  provocation 
of  the  subject  matter  determining  the  new  school  of 
writing  in  this  modern  day.  In  many  ways  the  same 
subject  matter  existed  before,  but  it  had  not  been 
recognized,  and  then  again  in  many  ways  the  subject 
matter  was  new. 

Take  Ossian  as  an  example  of  the  new  romanti- 
cism. It  carried  the  fevered  aspirants  for  weird  mel- 
ancholies and  fantastic  wildness  off  their  feet.  Trans- 
lated in  French  it  appealed  to  the  vague  restlessness 
of  youth,  and  seemed  to  fix  the  ardor  of  the  soul  upon 
images  of  spectral  or  nocturnal  beauty.  The  moon, 
the  bleak  and  wind  swept  moor,  the  moaning  trees 
beaten  by  gusts  of  wind,  and  throwing  their  tortured 
branches  to  the  sky  in  mimic  supplication,  the  steep 
cliffs,  the  solitudes  of  the  eagle's  eyrie,  the  crashing 
horrors  of  the  storm,  the  hissing  cataracts  of  falling 
rain,  blistering  bolts  of  lightning  and  the  rolling  rever- 
berations of  the  thunder  lost  amid  crags,  over  high- 
land passes,  or  in  the  tempest  kissed  pinnacles  of  the 
mountains ;  these  hair  raising  pictures  with  lovely  and 
anaemic  ladies  in  mental  anguish  over  fallen  lovers 
and  melancholy  heroes,  the  whole  wrapped  in  a  met- 
rical expression  swinging  and  monotonously  musical, 
fed  the  young  imagination,  and  pinched  the  hearts 
of  the  young  authors  with  a  pleasant  and  picturesque 

[156] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

sadness.  The  changed  subject  matter  meant  a  lot  of 
changed  words  and  combinations  of  words,  changed 
view,  changed  susceptibilities  and  a  different  litera- 
ture. This  Ossian  (the  minstrel  protagonist  of  Mac- 
pherson)  was  translated  into  French  and  forms  one 
of  the  standards  of  revolt,  a  rallying  cry,  and  a  point 
of  departure  for  new  effects  in  art  and  books. 

The  new  age  grew  rapidly.  It  quickly  passed  be- 
yond the  crude  rhapsodies  of  Ossian,  and  became  in- 
volved in  a  cycle  of  wonders,  and  discoveries  in 
science,  sociology,  thought,  art,  music,  geography; 
and  literature  found  thrust  upon  it  (for  expression)  a 
mass  of  sentiment  and  pictures  and  learning,  which 
taxed  even  the  inexhaustible  adaptability  of  the 
French  language  to  meet.  The  audiences  before  the 
writer  were  enormously  extended  both  in  numbers 
and  in  their  spiritual  insight.  All  things  made  the  new 
authors,  those  at  least  that  met  the  new  requirements 
well,  miracles  of  execution  and  penetration.  As 
Sainte  Beuve  says  in  his  superb  study  of  Balzac,  "au- 
jourd,  hui  par  suite  de  1'immense  travail  que  1'ecrivain 
s'impose  et  que  la  societe  lui  impose  a  courte  eche- 
ance,  par  suite  de  la  necessite  ou  il  est  de  frapper  vite 
et  fort,  il  n'a  pas  le  temps  d'etre  si  platonique  ni  si 
delicat.  La  personne  de  1'ecrivain,  son  organisation 
tout  entiere  s'engage  et  s'accuse  ellememe  jusque  dans 

[157] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ses  oeuvres ;  il  ne  les  ecrit  pas  seulement  avec  sa  pure 
pensee,  mais  avec  son  sang  et  ses  muscles.  La  physi- 
ologic et  1'hygiene  d'un  ecrivain  sont  devenues  un 
des  chapitres  indispensables  dans  1'analyse  qu'  on  fait 
de  son  talent." 

Through  Chateaubriand,  Lamartine,  Madame  de 
Stael,  de  Maistre,  Vigny,  Victor  Hugo,  Ducis,  La- 
mennais,  Mercier,  Beranger,  de  Mussel  the  passage 
was  made  to  the  multitudinous  present.  And  criti- 
cism grew;  grew  as  it  never  had  before.  It  became 
wide,  cognizant  of  the  whole  world.  It  abounded  in 
reason;  in  delicate  and  keen  appreciations,  in  correct 
estimates,  in  searching  and  uncompromising  expres- 
sion, in  enlightenment.  Fetters  of  prejudice,  of  self 
assumption,  of  class  slavery  dropped  from  its  wrists 
and  the  freed  hands  wrote  large,  plentifully,  zeal- 
ously, with  brain  matter  pushing  off  from  each  finger 
tip  into  the  current  of  observation,  argument,  and  con- 
clusion. 

The  beautiful  moderate  chaste  classicism,  worth- 
iest in  France,  because  there  dressed  in  the  raiment  of 
a  language  which  clung  to  its  form  with  solicitous 
grace  and  elegance,  fled  before  the  enfranchised  nine- 
teenth century;  this  century  into  whose  life,  as  if  lib- 
erated from  the  sealed  regions  of  the  sky,  a  thousand 
new  interests,  sympathies,  knowledges,  poured  their 

[158] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

floods  of  stimulating  thought,  was  crowding  upon 
human  attention  myriads  of  new  things  and  forming 
for  literature  new  societies,  new  commerces,  new 
nations,  new  sciences,  new  religions.  What  wonder 
that  a  new  literature  arose  or  that  the  old  shrank  back 
into  neglect. 

To  quote  again  Sainte  Beuve,  "ce  style  (the  mod- 
ern style  typified  in  Balzac)  si  souvent  chatouilleux 
et  dissolvant,  enerve,  rose,  et  veine  de  toutes  les  tein- 
tes,  ce  style  d'une  corruption  delicieuse,  tout  asiatique 
comme  disaient  nos  maitres,  plus  brise  par  places  et 
plus  amolli  que  le  corps  d'un  mime  antique;  *  *  *  * 
il  1'a  fin,  subtil,  courant,  pittoresque,  sans  analogic 
aucune  avec  la  tradition.  Je  me  suis  demande  quel- 
quefois  1'effet  que  produirait  un  livre  de  M.  de  Bal- 
zac sur  un  honnete  esprit,  mourri  jusqu,  alors  de  la 
bonne  prose  francaise  ordinaire  dans  toute  sa  fruga- 
lite,  sur  un  esprit  comme  il  n'y  en  a  plus,  forme  a  la 
lecture  de  Nicole,  de  Bourdaloue,  a  ce  style  simple, 
serieux  et  scrupuleux,  qui  va  loin,  comme  disait  La 
Bruyere ;  un  tel  esprit  en  aurait  le  vertige  pendant  un 
mois." 

But  Brunetiere  has  expended  his  sane  and  reveal- 
ing energies  of  critical  analysis  in  defining  the  essence 
of  this  same  romanticism  which  we  have  been  notic- 
ing. He  has  traced  and  defined  the  development 

[159] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

within  it  of  the  new  school  of  Naturalism,  which 
again,  from  a  painful  or  revolting  realism,  passed  into 
the  higher  realms  of  feeling,  wherein  moral  and  social 
ideals  and  a  deeply  humane  humanity  also  control 
the  writer  and  his  readers,  while  in  all  directions 
philosophy  and  psychology  gave  dignity  and  absorp- 
tion to  the  new  studies  of  life. 

He  tells  us  in  the  first  place  that  romanticism,  help- 
ful and  invigorating  as  this  movement  was,  is  the  en- 
trance of  the  Ego,  the  /,  of  the  author  into  literature, 
an  entrance,  be  it  observed,  not  without  aspirations 
and  solemn  vows  and  nobility  of  thought.  Brune- 
tiere  writes  (La  Literature  Europeenne  au  XIX 
Siecle)  ;  "on  a  donne  beaucoup  de  definitions  du 
romantism,  et  on  1'a  lui-mene  caracterise  tour  a  tour 
par  les  moins  essentiels  de  ses  traits.  Mais,  quels  qu, 
ils  soient  et  de  quelques  nom  qu,  on  les  nomme,  ils 
se  ramement  tous  a  deux,  qui  sont:  exterieurement, 
son  opposition  a  1'ideal  classique;  et  interieurement, 
1'emancipation  du  Moi  de  1'ecrivain.  Tandis  que 
1'ideal  classique  ne  se  concevait  et  ne  se  formulait  qu, 
en  fonction  du  public,  1'ideal  romantique  n'a  de  raison 
d'etre  ou  d'existence  meme  qu,  en  fonction  ou  plutot, 
et  a  vrai  dire  dans  la  manifestation  de  la  personnalite 
du  poete  ou  de  recrivain.  Aucun  souci  de  plaire  et 
encore  moins  d'instruire ;  il  ne  s'agit  que  d'etre  soi. 

[160] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

Je  ne  suis  rien,  a  dit  quelque  part  Wordsworth, 
si  je  ne  suis  pas  un  maitre,  un  professeur,  un  institu- 
teur:  a  teacher;  mais  il  cut  dit  encore  aves  plus  de 
verite  Si  je  ne  suis  pas  moi,  je  ne  suis  rien.  Ce  qui 
importe,  ce  n'est  ni  la  verite  de  ce  que  dit  le  poete,  ni 
sa  beaute,  ni  son  utilite,  mais  son  originalite;  et  1'or- 
iginalite  n'en  est  faite  que  de  ce  qu,  il  y  met  de  lui- 
meme ;  et  si  ce  qu,  il  y  met  de  lui  ne  ressemble  a  per- 
sonne,  c'est  alors  vraiment  qu,  il  est  poete." 

And  again  he  says  more  expressively  "On  n'ecrit 
point  pour  se  faire  lire,  mais  a  cause  d'un  besoin  qu, 
on  eprouve  de  penser,  ou  de  sentir  tout  haul;  de  se 
repandre  ou  de  s'epancher;  de  prendre  en  ecrivant 
conscience  de  soi-meme,  et  d'apprendre  aux  autres 

hommes    en    combien    de    manieres   nous    differons 

d»       »» 
eux. 

This  phase  of  literature  was  succeeded  by  an  ob- 
jective phase,  when,  instead  of  interpreting  nature  in 
terms  of  the  observer,  the  observer  was  expected  to 
exactly  reproduce  nature,  and  to  make  its  reproduc- 
tion so  completely  vraisemblable  as  to  place  before 
the  reader  at  least  in  history,  in  the  drama,  and  fiction, 
a  deceptively  real,  speaking,  and  emotionally  moving 
picture.  Sympathy  with  life,  broader  pictorial  fields 
of  study  and  interest  in  every  state  of  man  soon  broke 

[161] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

away  the  sullen  or  morbid  and  fantastic  sheaths  of 
personal  feeling,  and  the  romanticist  in  his  more  nar- 
row and  foolish  examples  vanished.  This  second 
stage  was  naturalism,  the  expansion  of  literature  to 
embrace  all  that  the  great  world  of  phenomena 
offered  to  all  the  senses. 

This  school  perhaps  at  first  harshly  literal,  despis- 
ing questions  of  morality,  of  artistic  repression,  be- 
came more  highly  cultivated,  more  intricately  inter- 
ested in  the  beauty  of  sentiment  and  character  and 
conduct,  as  well  as  in  the  beauty  of  an  enthralling 
realism  which  had  hitherto  imprisoned  it.  The  in- 
cessant progress  of  science  introduced  also  into  sys- 
tems of  the  philosophy  of  history,  or  art,  or  religion, 
or  literature  itself,  views  of  the  relationship  of  men 
to  environment,  to  physical  circumstances,  new  views 
on  heredity,  on  evolution,  and  raised  the  level  of  lit- 
erary study,  while  it  enormously  extended  the  reaches 
of  literary  sympathy. 

Then  came  the  period  of  those  later  novel  writers 
and  dramatists  whose  names  we  have  above,  rather 
carelessly,  assembled  with  those  of  the  earlier  and 
strictly  limited  romanticists.  Still  romanticism  as  an 
interpretation  of  nature  in  the  terms  of  the  observer, 
as  an  emphasis  of  the  I,  remained  long  after  its  exact 
reflection  in  literature  had  disappeared.  While  many 

[162] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

exact  romanticists  became  later  exponents  of  natural- 
ism, of  realism,  of  the  last  stages  of  progressive  analy- 
sis of  men's  minds  and  characters,  their  social  state 
and  its  beauties  and  defects,  still  traces  of  the  first 
assertions  of  individualism  remained.  And  on  the 
other  hand  many  writers  born  under  the  very  latest 
influences  showed  on  their  pages  the  inevitable  re- 
sumption of  the  old  romanticism. 

The  last  cosmopolitan  phases  of  literature  present 
us  with  the  encouraging  display  of  the  authors  diving 
into  all  the  social,  religious,  artistic,  scientific,  political 
questions  of  the  hour  and  race,  and  of  the  disappear- 
ance of  hierarchical  degrees  in  literature  as  the  in- 
tellectual democracy  of  the  new  century  seized  all 
the  avenues  of  learning  and  expression. 

It  is  of  this  phase  that  Brunnetiere  in  another  place 
has  spoken  with  such  noble  sincerity,  "on  ne  saurait 
travailler  trop  activement,  ni  surtout  trop  continu- 
ment,  a  assoupir  les  haines  de  races  a  les  endormir, 
a  les  aneantir,  et,  quand  1'extension  du  cosmopoli- 
tisme  litteraire  n'aboutirait  quelque  jour  qu,  a  cet 
unique  resultat,  nous  I'estimons  des  a  present  assez 
considerable.  Ai-je  besoin  d'ajouter  qu,  aucun  role 
ne  saurait  mieux  convenir  a  la  litterature  que  de  se 
consacrer  a  cette  tache?  et,  dans  un  monde  qui  ne 

[163] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

valait  pas  le  notre,  n'etait  ce  pas  deja  ce  que  voulaient 
dire  les  anciens  quand  ils  disaient  que  beaucoup  d'au- 
tres  choses  assurement  sont  humaines,  mais  que  la 
litterature  est  plus  humaine  encore;  humaniores  litter- 
ae?" 

At  every  step  in  this  evolution  of  French  literature 
the  subject  matter  changed.  Not  that  the  world  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  the  classicist  was  any  different  thing 
from  that  one  before  the  eyes  of  the  romanticist,  the 
naturalist,  the  realist,  the  psychologist,  the  cosmopol- 
itan, but  because  all  these  saw  different  things  in  it, 
selecting  their  own  sort,  the  subject  matter  which  the 
world  offered  them  was  also  different  to  each,  and  a 
different  kind  of  writing  resulted.  And  this  general 
effect  of  difference  in  the  schools  was  reflected  in  the 
individual,  for  again,  according  to  temperament  and 
place,  each  individual  would  contemplate  a  different 
subject  matter — different,  even  though  the  mere  phy- 
sical outlines,  substance,  and  contents  of  the  things 
looked  at  were  the  same.  To  one  an  order  of  events 
meant  a  subjective  impression,  to  another  a  scene  to 
be  carefully  described  in  words,  to  a  third  a  glimpse 
into  souls  or  epochs. 

For  it  was  and  is,  as  with  the  white  light  of  the 
Sun  and  colored  glasses.  Each  kind  of  colored  glass 
abstracts  its  own  color  from  the  fused  glory  in  the 

[164] 


FRENCH    LITERATURE 

sunlight  of  all  the  rainbow,  and  the  idealist,  the 
naturalist,  the  romanticist  took  from  the  wonderful 
world  about  them,  what  their  genius  might  return  to 
the  minds  of  men,  in  some  form  of  desirable  or  attrac- 
tive or  touching  literature. 

Certainly  the  evolution  of  literature  depends  upon 
the  interaction  of  the  mind  of  man  and  the  outside 
world  of  things  moral,  physical  and  social.  But  cer- 
tainly also  that  outside  world — the  subject  matter — 
forms  the  basic  part  in  that  reaction  and  the  final 
precipitate  must  be  determined  by  its  contents.  The 
study  of  any  literature  would  show  this,  the  study  of 
French  literature,  as  the  worthiest  of  study,  makes  it 
increasingly  clear. 

Let  us  now  advance  to  the  unique  purpose  of  this 
whole  inquiry  and  see  how  far  Sin,  Ignorance  and 
Misery  enter  into  the  composition  of  literary  works 
and  how  indispensable  they  are  to  furnish  us  with  the 
loftiest  or  the  most  entertaining  products  of  human 
creative  thought. 


[165] 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

A  world  without  a  trace  of  sin  would  be  a  curi- 
ous and  unfamiliar  sight  and  one  robbed,  I  take  it, 
of  a  great  deal  of  that  interest  which  the  present  world 
most  unmitigatedly  affords.  The  disappearance  of 
the  police  from  the  streets  of  New  York  alone  would 
furnish  the  keenest  disappointment.  The  sudden 
withdrawal  of  the  courts  and  the  lawyers,  however 
advantageous  to  our  pocket  books,  would  empty  the 
daily  news  papers  of  half  of  their  most  entertaining 
paragraphs.  The  placidity  of  a  life  without  politic- 
ians and  high  finance  would  be  contemplated  with 
abhorrence  by  ninety  out  of  one  hundred  of  the  pres- 
ent inhabitants  of  New  York  City.  The  substitution 
of  an  era  of  complete  release  from  starvation,  heart- 
ache, and  rags,  while  doubtless  saving  us  from  many 
harrowing  thoughts  would  deprive  us  of  the  pathos 
we  need  for  the  gratification  of  our  sense  of  philan- 
thropy, and  incidentally  destroy  the  groundwork  of 
a  lot  of  pretty  poetry,  and  dry  the  sources  of  our 
amiable  tears.  A  world  without  war,  infringement, 
complicity,  intimidation,  plots,  revenges,  envies, 
hatreds,  deceptions,  tricks,  murders,  recriminations, 

[166] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

and  passion,  while  no  doubt  offering  some  agreeable 
and  lucid  reasons  for  continuing  our  publishing 
houses,  would  completely  fail  in  supplying  the  neces- 
sary nutriment  for  plays  and  stories,  not  to  speak  of 
the  broad  and  flowing  retinue  of  novels  that  thereby 
would  be  most  abruptly  arrested. 

For  be  it  observed  that  while  most  of  us  might  be 
quite  free  of  these  crimes,  misdemeanors  and  infirmi- 
ties, none  of  us  are  at  all  free  of  weaknesses  that  are 
themselves  only  the  reduced  and,  so  to  speak,  sublim- 
inal reflections  of  these  worser  states.  Kill  all  wick- 
edness, estop  all  sinful  thought,  exterminate  and  expel 
all  nefarious  sympathies  and  projects,  stab  to  death 
in  its  vitality,  freedom  and  exuberant  productivity  the 
procreant  centres  of  wrong-doing,  and  with  that 
wholesale  regeneration  of  the  moral  estate  of  the 
human,  clarify  the  inner  consciousness  of  even  the 
most  refined,  tender  and  immaculate  individuals,  and 
at  one  stroke  you  would  expel  from  the  world  the 
substance  for  the  best  fiction,  and  the  receptivity  of 
temperament  and  appreciation  which,  in  authors,  in- 
nocent of  all  crime,  is  essential  for  their  self  incorpo- 
ration in  the  feelings  and  motives,  designs,  and  con- 
ducts of  those  who  make  history  and  story.  There 
is  a  latent  possibility  of  all  manner  of  evil  in  most  of 
us,  though  convention  and  cowardice,  and  very  gen- 

[167] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

erally  good  living  in  a  physical  sense,  keep  it  sup- 
pressed or  unsuspected.  It  is  this  latent  possibility 
that  makes  us  sensitive  and  properly  responsive  to 
the  flagitiousness  of  Richard  of  Gloster  or  Lucretia 
Borgia,  I  mean  in  a  histrionic  and  literary  way. 

But  it  does  not  end  there,  the  innuendoes,  pecca- 
dillos, little  avarices,  amusing  envies,  small  mean- 
nesses, caricatures  of  imitation,  and  the  whole  tribe 
of  venial  sins  would  vanish  in  an  atmosphere  of  sin- 
less brilliancy  and  excellence.  And  this  would 
largely  mean  the  disappearance  of  humour,  the  sud- 
den extinction  of  a  cloud  of  petty  and  ludicrous 
themes  for  the  play  and  the  story.  Then  the  innum- 
erable qualities  of  passion  with  the  wonderful  mix-: 
ture  of  every  kind  of  shade  of  violence,  and  warring 
hopes  and  intentions  attending  its  daily  manifesta- 
tions would  all  go.  Whether  creditable  or  not,  the 
libidinous  charm  of  many  novels  which  now  are 
read  with  a  keen  and  unruffled  interest,  especially  in 
French,  would  go  too.  And  what  in  the  name  of 
curiosity  and  speculation  would  the  ordinary  play- 
wright do  when  he  finds  himself  in  a  world  devoid  of 
sin?  His  gasping  incredulity  as  to  the  existence  of 
any  kind  of  perfection  in  human  conduct  might  sud- 
denly find  itself  confronted  with  the  fact,  but  with 
what  a  shock  to  his  theatrical  ambitions  and  designs ! 

[168] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

And  indeed  should  we  go  higher  in  the  literary 
interpretation  of  the  value  of  sin  as  a  book  and  sermon 
making  power  we  should  point  to  the  pathos  of  the 
world  in  this  regard,  and  endeavor  to  estimate  the 
wonderful  power  of  the  eloquence  which  has  been 
expended  to  recall  men  from  the  errors  of  their  ways, 
and  of  those  dissertations  which,  for  no  other  reason 
than  the  existence  of  sin,  are  today  counted,  and 
justly,  as  the  world's  proudest  examples  of  verbal 
beauty. 

The  learning  and  majesty  of  Barrow,  the  weight, 
dignity  and  firm  construction  of  Hooker,  the  melli- 
fluous urgency  of  Taylor,  the  passionate  periods  of 
Bossuet,  the  inerrant  and  penetrating  sweetness  o£ 
Newman,  the  skill  and  earnest  force  of  Robertson, 
the  nervous  intensity  of  Rosmini,  the  varied  manifold 
and  indubitable  splendor  of  the  works  of  all  men 
devoted  to  this  especial  mission  of  getting  wickedness 
out  of  the  world  has  arisen  and  continued  because 
of  Sin.  "For  the  rest"  to  quote  with  the  slightest 
alteration  a  notable  sentence  of  Carlyle  in  his  essay 
on  Voltaire,  "the  question  how  Sin  originated  is 
doubtless  a  high  question;  resolvable  enough,  if  we 
view  only  its  surface;  involved  in  sacred,  silent,  un- 
fathomable depths,  if  we  investigate  its  interior 
meanings;  which  meanings,  indeed,  it  may  be,  every 

[169] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

new  age  will  develop  to  itself  in  a  new  manner  and 
with  new  degrees  of  light;  for  the  whole  truth  may 
be  called  infinite,  and  to  man's  eye  discernible  only 
in  parts;  but  the  question  itself  is  nowise  the  ulti- 
mate one  in  this  matter." 

Would  it  be  possible  to  find  in  the  vast  circum- 
ference of  human  circumstances  then,  when  we  con- 
template the  subtle  and  pervasive  entrance  of  Sin 
into  all  the  innumerable  and  labyrinthine  crevices 
and  corners  of  human  affairs,  its  textural  admixture 
in  the  substance  of  all  living,  to  find  anything  which 
could  be  eliminated  from  the  world  with  more  dam- 
age to  its  literary  output. 

With  sin  out  of  the  world  doubtless  a  certain  glit- 
tering perfection  and  a  very  comfortable  salubrity 
of  social  atmosphere  would  be  distinctly  noticeable, 
but  where  would  the  panting  authors  then  find  the 
stirring  and  woefully  picturesque  conflicts  of  Virtue 
with  its  arch  enemy ;  of  which  conflicts  books  from  the 
2d  chapter  of  Genesis  have  been  memorably 
crowded?  The  reasonableness  of  life  disappears, 
with  sin  gone — all  gone — and  certainly  its  majesty 
and  tenderness.  Our  merits  lose  their  perspicacity 
and  relief,  their  moral  value  and  emotional  appeal, 
because  all  their  significance  and  beauty  rests  in  the 
index  they  present  of  resistance,  of  struggle,  of  waver- 

[170] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

ing  success  and  defeat.  Happiness  of  a  very  serene 
and  ethereal  hue  might  invite  portraiture,  but  it 
would  hardly  furnish  ardent  souls  with  the  fluent  joy 
of  perusing  the  Wandering  Jew,  or  yield  us  the 
piercing  pain  and  fascination  of  Romola  and  the 
Scarlet  Letter.  A  world  deprived  of  contrasts,  a 
world  flattened  into  an  immaculate  plane  of  universal 
propriety  and  individual  beatitude  would  seem,  of  all 
spots,  the  least  likely  to  give  us  a  Shakespeare,  a 
Scott,  or  a  Cervantes.  Our  daily  food  is  indigestible 
without  salts,  peppers,  bitters  and  acids  and  no  in- 
eptitude of  composition  could  probably  exceed  the 
insipidity  of  the  results  of  depicting  and  dramatising 
saintliness.  The  extirpation  of  endeavor  to  reach 
certain  desirable  ideals  might  mean  a  nerveless  ecstacy 
of  feeling,  but  how  inconceivable  would  then  be  the 
generation  of  the  Goethes,  the  Schillers,  the  Ruskins, 
the  Carlyles,  the  Tennysons? 

The  proof  of  this  is  visibly  easy.  Old  age  is  per- 
haps in  most  well  regulated  and  at  least  normally 
healthy  lives,  the  period  of  least  interest,  and  it  is 
also  the  period  the  least  harassed  with  sin.  Its  pla- 
cidity and  remoteness  of  any  occasions  to  commit 
murder,  rape,  burglary,  falsehood,  to  feel  envy,  hatch 
plots,  connive  at  deceptions,  wage  war,  fall  into  fits 
of  desperation,  jealousy  and  ignominous  turpitude,  to 

[171] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

climb  the  stairs  of  renunciation,  or  to  liberate  the 
prisoners  of  Hope,  absolutely  erase  it  from  all  con- 
sideration as  a  literary  epoch  in  men's  existence.  Old 
age,  with  its  weakened  sensibilities,  its  easy  assent 
to  circumstances,  its  debilitated  temper,  its  remote 
calmness,  its  lucid  freedom  from  desire,  or  vanity, 
its  illustrious  knowledge  of  a  life-time  expresses  a 
kind  of  state  of  release  from  sin,  ignorance  and  misery, 
granting  it,  as  so  often  is  the  case,  bodily  repose  and 
bodily  functional  equilibrium. 

And  who  expects  literature  from  Old  Age?  At 
least  literature  of  a  notable  sort?  How  under  such 
circumstances  or  any  circumstances  of  suggestion 
would  tragedies  and  epics,  (now  already  lost)  and 
histories,  threnodies  and  novels  be  expected  from  the 
old?  The  simile  is  deceptive  and  erroneous  in  large 
measure,  but  it  helps  us  to  see  pretty  clearly  that  irt 
a  state — heavenly  or  earthly — where  the  motley  and 
endless  diversity  of  psychological  phases  produced 
by  Sin,  Ignorance,  or  Misery  were  absent,  a  very  big 
portion  of  great  literature  must  be  absent  also.  And 
it  is  still  the  subject  matter  that  is  absent. 

Even  if  very  good  poetry  and  very  good  writing 
were  conceivable  in  an  ideal  existence  it  would  still 
fail  in  the  note  of  discontent,  of  yearning,  or  wonder- 
ment, of  aweful  hope,  in  the  vague  subconscious  grief 

[172] 


and  wondering  regret  and  haunting  sadness  that 
makes  human  writing,  even  when  pleasurable  and 
gay,  sweet  and  fascinating.  Indeed  it  might  be  such 
absolutely  good  writing  as  to  be  good  for  nothing. 
I  cannot,  in  a  broad  sense,  regret  that  we  have  poor 
or  even  dull  writing,  for  does  it  not  allow  the  cleverer 
ones,  the  Macaulays,  the  Carlyles,  the  Chestertons, 
the  Ripleys,  new  chances  to  be  more  mirthful  and 
irresistible?  And  yet  their  eager  satire,  their  sun- 
dering blows  of  denunciation  or  ridicule,  their  split- 
ting volleys  of  wit  and  comic  correction  are  them- 
selves light,  so  to  speak,  vaporous  forms  of  sin,  but 
yet  how  good  and  delectable,  how  incommunicable 
and  valuable! 

Goodness  need  not  be  stupid,  but  how  (some- 
times) uninteresting!  I  am  a  good  man  myself,  but 
of  all  men  the  most  blinking  and  owl-like.  And  yet 
I  have  this  advantage;  sin  is  in  my  veins,  in  my 
humour,  in  my  speech,  in  my  environment,  and 
thereby  I  am  tolerably  well  saved  from  being  an 
utter  mental  and  social  blank.  The  more  one  thinks 
of  it,  the  deeper  we  search  after  the  rivulous  main- 
springs and  secondary  and  tertiary  or  quarternary  or 
centenary  springs  of  literary  motive  and  execution,  the 
more  conclusively  we  note  how  die  imperfection  of 
our  state  makes  the  perfection  of  our  literature,  how 

[173] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

from  subject  matter  to  the  last  attenuation  of  our 
response  to  our  forlorn  ignorance,  our  dejection,  or 
our  impiety  and  discontent,  the  most  pronounced 
and  the  most  fugitive  excellence  and  beauties  of  what 
we  write  (if  we  are  speaking  of  essential  literature) 
seems  to  spring  from  our  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery. 

Shall  we  be  more  exact?  Shall  we  hunt  this 
matter  out  by  the  baneful  but  convincing  fashion  of 
scrutiny  and  analysis,  mathematical  balancing  and 
tabulation?  We  set  out  on  this  book  for  that  pur- 
pose, and  a  thesis  proved,  even  if  scowled  at  and 
neglected,  is  better  than  a  non-sequitur  admired,  and 
hastily  and  universally  purchased.  It  would  be  more 
pleasant  if  we  were  so  gifted  in  allusion  and  anec- 
dote, simile  and  modern  instances,  to  demonstrate 
our  theme  more  discursively  and  lure  the  reader,  if 
he  still  remains  at  these  pages,  to  a  tardy  assent  by  a 
humorous  wheedling  of  his  judgment. 

But  the  matter  contains  food  for  thought;  and  a 
little  academic  logic,  evidence  and  prose  brings  it 
forward  in  a  rather  startling  guise,  and  while  we  may 
lose  his  smiles  we  shall  feel  repayed  if  we  awaken 
the  fears  of  our  reader.  Repayed  if  we  jolt  him  into 
the  surprised  attitude  of  being  thankful  after  all  that 
there  are  murders  and  burglaries  and  slaughters,  and 
poisonings  and  general  immorality,  multitudinous 

[174] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

back-sliding,  back  biting,  assassinations,  wars,  op- 
pression, tyranny,  larcenies,  arson,  corruption,  lieing, 
deceits,  avarice,  bombast,  inflation,  detraction,  hate, 
malevolence,  with  all  lesser  villainies,  which,  if  they 
be  not  actually  with  us  (and  the  most  credulous 
optimism  would  not  doubt  a  few  still  stick  to  us) 
are  at  least  so  near  at  hand,  in  time,  that  our  authors 
have  neither  forgotten  them,  nor  lost  their  admirable 
appreciation  of  their  literary  usefulness. 

Let  us  see  to  what  extent  we  can  inveigle  the 
grace-saying  and  newspaper-reading  Christian  to 
rejoice  over  his  muffin  and  egg-coffee  that  the  sinner 
is  yet  extant,  rejoice  even  that  in  himself  he  (the 
sinner)  has  a  reasonable  claim  to  recognition.  Not 
indeed  as  it  obviously  appears,  that  the  monopoly 
of  existence  by  sin  would  be  propitious  to  Literature^ 
It  is  the  struggle,  the  pulling  hither  and  thither,  the 
tug  to  and  fro,  the  fluctuating  ebb  and  flow,  between 
Sinner  and  Saint  that  furnishes  the  incessant  provo- 
cation of  speech  and  incident. 

But  the  emphasis  however  is  not  to  be  laid  on 
Goodness  as  a  literary  tonic,  for  that  increases,  pre- 
vailingly grows  stronger,  so  that  in  Heaven,  or,  in 
the  approaching  earthly  millenium  (already  not  in- 
distinguishable) Goodness,  alone  regnant,  there  will 
be  no  reaction,  and  our  virtues  robbed  of  their  right- 
[175] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ecus  indignation,  their  militant  and  choleric  deter- 
mination, their  heroisms  of  warfare  and  daring,  their 
sensible  and  pleasing  admixture  of  genuine  and 
wicked  rage,  will  become  chlorinated  into  colorless 
and  motionless  moral  appurtenances,  and  literature 
consist  of  essays  on  finance,  adventure,  and  science; 
and  poems,  descriptive  ejaculations  of  happiness. 
There  may  be  room  for  Courage  even  in  Heaven^ 
and  for  Love,  and  these  will  no  doubt  help  literary 
zeal,  but  in  a  sinless  world  or  a  sinless  heaven,  some- 
how, it  seems  as  if  both  Courage  and  Love  would 
assume  a  variable  and  decadent  form,  to  what  we 
recognize  in  both  categories  here  at  present,  or  in  the 
past.  The  prospect  in  all  ways  seems  dismal.  The 
book-lover  is  having  his  best  time  now,  but 
let  us  begin  our  formal  inquiry.  We  venture 
to  say,  and  our  claim  cannot  easily  be  made  exorbi- 
tant, that  without  Sin  the  best  Drama,  History,  some 
of  the  best  Poetry,  much  of  the  best  Essay  writing, 
and  almost  all  Fiction  or  what  we  now  so  consider, 
would  not  have  been  produced,  would  not  have  been 
possible. 

A  word  as  to  Sin.  We  are  not  to  be  stultified  by 
any  narrow  interpretation  of  that  quality.  We  mean 
everything  that  an  industrious  analysis  can  see  in  or 
get  out  of  it.  Not  only  its  terrific  manifestations  but 

[176] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

those  subtleties  of  imperfection  which  made  Sancho 
Panza,  rejoice  over  the  embarrassment  of  his  master, 
or  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek  and  Sir  Toby  Belch  and 
Maria  yield  to  unstinted  mirth  at  the  affectations  of 
Malvolio,  the  fugitive  insolence  of  Fallstaff,  and  the 
illnatured  even  if  seasonable  sarcasm  of  Mrs.  Poyser 
in  Adam  Bebe,  the  irresolute  depravity  of  Mr. 
Tupman,  or  the  droll  knavery  of  Jingle,  nor  except 
indeed,  those  postures  of  virulent  derision  which  gave 
us  the  Dunciad,  or  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Re- 
viewers. 

For  what  after  all  is  Sin?  Imperfection;  or  what 
we  can  call  imperfection  if  we  have  regard  to  an  abso- 
lute ideal  of  conduct.  Can  it  not  grade  from  murder 
by  our  hands  or  in  our  hearts,  to  the  whisper  of  scan- 
dal or  the  jocular  invention  of  a  practical  joke.  The 
categories  of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery  are  much 
mixed  up  in  actual  life,  and  their  blended  expressions, 
in  the  web  and  woof  of  every  day  affairs,  and  more 
mightily  in  those  affairs  that  are  not  at  all  daily  oc- 
currences, are  difficult,  accurately,  to  gauge.  Ignor- 
ance and  Misery  greatly,  as  we  all  know,  accentuate 
and  aggravate  Sin,  and  often  lend  to  it  a  grotesque 
reasonableness,  often  horribly  distend  and  confuse 
its  lineaments,  often  form  the  motives  or  auxiliary 
incentives  for  its  worse  and  most  sensual  pictures; 
[177] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

as  Caliban,  and  Thersites,  and  Cyclops,  Cousin 
Bette,  the  Hunchback  of  Notre  Dame,  Rogue  Rider- 
hood. 

But  in  the  chapters  which  follow  we  shall  try  to 
keep  separate  these  elements  in  the  substance  of 
Literature  recognizing  instinctively  how  much,  how 
often,  how  indefinitely  and  infinitely  they  react  on 
each  other,  producing  all  sorts  of  complications,  in- 
verted and  topsy  turvy  medleys  of  circumstances,  out 
of  which  imagination,  fancy,  verbal  cleverness,  and 
invention  produce  the  wide,  crowded,  and  uninter- 
rupted currents  of  publications  which  we  call  liter- 
ature. 

But  not  only  does  Ignorance  and  Misery  modify 
Sin,  but  temperament,  mind,  individual  aptitude, 
taste  and  judgment,  so  that  here  again  appears  a  long 
train  of  literary  consequences.  As  Montaigne  says 
in  his  chapter  on  Drunkenness  (De  1'Yvrognerie) 
'Tesprit  a  plus  de  part  ailleurs;  et  il  y  a  des  vices  qui 
ont  ie  ne  sc,ais  quoy  de  genereux,  s'il  le  fault  ainsi 
dire;  il  y  en  a  ou  la  science  se  mesle,  la  diligence,  la 
vaillance,  la  prudence,  1'adresse  et  la  finesse." 

Montaigne  has  himself  pointed  out  how  our  vir- 
tues gain  their  real  beauty  from  the  obstacles  or  dis- 
couragements they  undergo.  He  says  in  his  Essay 
on  Cruelty,  "II  me  semble  que  la  vertu  est  chose  aul- 

[178] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

tre,  et  plus  noble,  que  les  inclinations  a  la  bonte  qui 
naissent  en  nous.  Les  ames  reglees  d'elles  mesmes 
et  bien  nees,  elles  suyvent  mesme  train,  et  represent- 
ent,  en  leurs  actions,  mesme  visage  que  les  vertueuses : 
mais  la  vertu  sonne  ie  ne  s^ais  quoy  de  plus  grand  et 
de  plus  actif  que  de  se  laisser,  par  une  heureuse  com- 
plexion, doulcement  et  paisiblement  conduire  a  la 
suitte  de  la  raison.  Celuy  qui,  d'une  doulceur  et 
facilite  naturelle,  mepriseroit  les  offenses  receues, 
feroit  chose  tresbelle  et  digne  de  louange ;  mais  celuy 
qui,  picque  et  oultre  iusques  au  vif  d'une  offense, 
s'  armeroit  des  armes  de  la  raison  centre  ce  furieux 
appetit  de  vengeance,  et,  aprez  un  grand  conflict, 
s'en  rendroit  enfin  maistre,  feroit  sans  double  beau- 
coup  plus.  Celuy  la  feroit  bien;  et  cettuy  cy,  ver- 
tueusement;  1'une  action  se  pourroit  dire  bonte; 
1'aultre,  vertu;  car  il  semble  que  le  nom  de  la  vertu 
presuppose  de  la  difficulte  et  du  contraste,  et  qu,  elle 
ne  peult  s'exercer  sans  partie.  C'est  a  1'adventure 
pour  quoy  nous  nommons  Dieu,  bon,  fort,  et  liberal, 
et  iuste,  mais  nous  ne  le  nommons  pas  vertueux;  ses 
operations  sont  toutes  naifves  et  sans  effort."  And 
all  this  happens  because,  as  Spenser  says,  "all  evil 
results  from  the  non-adaptation  of  constitution  to  con- 
ditions." We  are  in  a  world  of  difficulties,  and  one 
of  the  chief  difficulties  is  this  very  Sin,  which,  with  a 

[179] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

psychological  value  far  surpassing  anything  Spenser 
would  assign  to  it,  keeps  up  an  incessant  display  of 
moral  marvels,  subtleties  and  jokes. 

Emotions  cause  our  sin.  What  are  these  emotions? 
That  is  not  what  is  their  nature  but  their  aspects  for 
we,  in  this  inquiry,  have  no  interest  in  them,  except 
as  Substance  for  literature.  Dr.  McCosh  has  used  a 
convenient  system  for  the  classification  of  the  emotions 
as  First,  single  emotions,  then  under  single  emotions, 
those  directed  to  Inanimate,  and  those  directed  to 
Animate  objects.  In  the  former  category  we  observe 
the  sentiment  of  beauty — the  Aesthetic — and  the  in- 
stinct of  the  Ludicrous.  In  the  latter  we  have  Retro- 
spective, (back-looking),  and  Immediate  (present) 
and  Prospective,  (forward-looking)  emotions.  The 
feelings  under  these  headings  which  put  on — allowing 
the  broad  interpretation  we  assign  to  Sin — the  hue  of 
imperfection,  are,  or  can  be  tabulated  in  the  following 
manner : 

Retrospective. 

Self  Satisfaction,  or  Regret. 

Righteousness,  Self  Esteem. 

Sufficiency. 
"    Adulation. 

Bitterness. 

Chagrin. 

[180] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

Anger,  Irritation,  Temper,  Indignation,  Rage, 
Wrath,  Malignancy,  Resentment,  Vengeance,  Vin- 
dictiveness. 

Immediate. 

Discontent,  Bad  Humour,  Pride,  Self-Conceit, 
Vanity,  Haughtiness,  Contempt,  Disdain,  Scorn, 
Sneering,  Disgust,  Resistance,  Repining,  Peevish- 
ness, Sourness,  Hardness  of  Heart,  Envy,  Suspicion, 
Jealousy. 

Prospective. 

Apprehension,  Fear,  Shrinking,  Greed,  Glut- 
tony, (these  latter  two,  if  they  be  emotions,  breeding 
covetousness,  meanness,  penuriousness,  stinginess, 
miserliness,  and  the  entertaining  but  slovenly  vices  of 
niggardly  self  seeking,  &c.)  and  also  profligacy,  self 
indulgence,  waste,  luxury;  while  from  Fear,  I  take  it, 
we  may  derive  those  fruitful  sources  of  literary  activ- 
ity in  fawning,  obsequiousness,  flattery,  deceit,  lieing ; 
though  some  of  this  springs  from  Greed. 

And  then  amongst  these  Prospective  emotions  may 
be  inserted  the  varied  forms  and  degrees  of  animal 
passion,  which,  of  all  things,  seems  most  helpful  to 
the  accumulation  of  incidents  and  predicaments  for 
the  novelist,  the  dramatist,  and  the  poet. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  these  emotions  offer  an  ac- 
tive (dynamic  or  kinetic)  and  a  passive  (static)  side; 

[181] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

that  we  may  contemplate  rage  simply  as  a  state,  and 
also  as  an  act,  in  murder,  violence,  outrage  or  assault, 
pride  as  a  condition  and  as  an  offensive  exhibition  of 
insulting  conduct;  discontent  as  an  attitude  and  as 
an  exhibition  of  sighs,  groans,  recriminations,  and 
tears ;  suspicion  as  a  frame  of  mind,  and  as  the  display 
of  devices,  surveillance,  innuendoes,  and  plots,  for  the 
detection  of  the  suspected  person,  and  so  on  and  so  on. 
Regarding  then  this  assemblage  of  emotions,  and 
the  fruitful  consequences  of  their  activity,  under  a 
thousand  changing  conditions  of  time,  place,  and  indi- 
vidual character,  noting  also  how  they  may  excite 
and  involve  each  other,  so  that  an  act  of  Sin  engages 
a  group  of  related  emotions,  and  plunges  its  subject 
into  a  diversified  series  of  motions,  all  contributing 
something  to  a  dramatic  denouement  or  at  the  least  a 
pleasing  problem  for  analysis,  and  further  recalling 
the  contrasted  accidents  of  age,  climate,  environment, 
dress,  associations,  how  unavailing,  almost,  seems  any 
attempt  to  imagine  a  virile  and  picturesque  literature, 
in  its  essential  elements,  deprived  of  this  stimulating 
assortment  of  minor  and  great  sins.  Let  it  also  be 
apologetically  urged  that  we  mean  that  this  spectacle 
of  sin  mingles  abundantly  and  profusely  with  a  world 
of  goodness,  and  infinitely  and  inexhaustively  fur- 
nishes interest,  excitement,  amusement,  pleasure,  de- 

[182] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

light,  tonicity,  and  wonder,  as  invention  and  genius 
weave  from  it  the  marvellous  radiant  and  sombre 
tapestries  of  epic  and  story,  and  it  strews  the  pathway 
of  history  with  romance,  pictures,  character,  conflict; 
is  indeed  history  itself.  We  will  look  at  the  measure 
of  all  this  in  History,  Drama,  Poetry,  and  Fiction. 

History  began  in  an  act  of  Sin  if  the  tale  of  Adam 
and  Eve  can  now  count  for  something,  and  almost 
up  to  the  nineteenth  century  History  has  largely  con- 
sisted of  wars  which  are  very  large  and  copious  com- 
plications of  Sin. 

Altera  jam  teritur  bellis  civilibus  aetas, 

Suis  et  ipsa  Roma  viribus  ruit; 
Quam  neque  finitimi  valuerunt  perdere  Marsi, 

Minacis  aut  Etrusca  Porsenae  manus, 
Aemula  nee  virtus  Capuae,  nee  Spartacus  acer, 

Novisque  rebus  infidelis  Allobrox, 
Nee  fera  coerulea  domuit  Germania  pube, 

Parentibus  que  abominatus  Hannibal, 
Impia  perdemus  devoti  sanguinis  aetas, 
Ferisque  rursus  occupabitur  solum. 
Thus  sung  Horace  at  the  beginning  of  our  Chris- 
tion  era  and  ever  since  and,  before,  the  centuries  have 
been  punctuated  with  these  recurrent  deluges  of  blood 
and  suffering,  many  of  them  so  densely  crowded  with 
carnage  that  their  History  becomes  little  else  than 

[183] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

a  chronicle  of  human  combat,  waged  too  with  all 
the  most  shocking  accompaniments  of  deliberate 
cruelty  which  as  Goldwin  Smith  has  said,  "is  the 
worst,  the  most  unpardonable  of  vices." 

But  in  the  main  what  interest  has  war  imparted 
to  History!  Waged  as  it  generally  has  been  for  the 
gratification  of  ambition,  greed,  rapacity,  abnormal 
and  monstrous  love  of  power,  the  satisfaction  of  ven- 
geance, the  mad  and  dissolute  egotism  of  kings  and 
princes,  the  hideous  vindictiveness  of  religious  big- 
otry, the  stifling  calls  of  vanity,  yet  how  wonderfully 
it  brings  life  and  tumultuous  accident  into  the  pages 
of  the  historian.  Has  not  Macaulay  well  summarized 
the  matter  when  he  describes  the  narration  of  Hero- 
ditus,  the  Father  of  History?  "the  chronicler  had  now 
to  tell  the  story  of  that  great  conflict  from  which 
Europe  dates  its  intellectual  and  political  supremacy 
— a  story  which,  even  at  this  distance  of  time,  is  the 
most  marvelous  and  the  most  touching  in  the  annals 
of  the  human  race, — a  story  abounding  with  all  that 
is  wild  and  wonderful,  with  all  that  is  pathetic  and 
animating ;  with  the  gigantic  caprices  of  infinite  wealth 
and  despotic  power — with  the  mightier  miracles  of 
wisdomr  of  virtue  and  of  courage."  Had  not  the 
Sin  of  a  reckless,  a  stupid,  an  insatiate  vanity  reigned 
in  the  heart  of  Xerxes,  the  glories  and  the  scenes  of 

[184] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

a  Thermopilae,  a  Marathon,  a  Salamis,  would  never 
have  enlivened  the  pages  of  literature. 

And  what  justifies  the  splendid  praise  of  Thucy- 
dides  by  Macaulay,  what  has  given  fervor,  vividness, 
and  charm,  to  his  narrative,  but  the  subject  matter 
of  a  war?  A  war  between  the  Grecian  states  of 
Athens  and  Sparta  conceived  in  jealousy  and  carried 
on  with  crime  and  desolating  violence? 

The  absorbing  interest  of  the  beginnings  of  states 
rests  in  aggression,  in  racial  collision,  in  the  personal 
domination  of  men  whose  chief  articles  of  conduct  are 
based  on  anything  else  than  the  principles  of  Chris- 
tian ethics.  And  in  those  brilliant  pages  of  history, 
on  which  literary  skill  and  intellectual  analysis  spend 
their  finest  gifts,  where  the  power  of  epithet  and  the 
force  of  description  match  the  bewildering  progress 
of  events,  it  is  the  conquerors,  the  world's  heroes,  the 
captains  of  genius,  who  furnish  the  occasion  for  the 
entertainment  and  the  mind's  delight.  Alexander, 
Hannibal,  Caesar,  Atilla,  Charlemagne,  William, 
Henry  the  5th,  the  Duke  of  Palermo,  Frederick, 
Marlborough,  Napoleon,  with  the  innumerable  host 
of  lesser  commanders  in  the  conversion  of  kingdoms, 
in  the  overthrow  of  dynasties,  in  the  setting  up  and 
the  pulling  down  of  thrones  who  have  evoked  the 
capabilities  of  art  to  describe  their  careers. 

[185] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Milite  nam  tuo 

Drusus  Genaunos,  implacidum  genus, 
Brennosque  veloces,  et  arces 

Alpibus  impositas  tremendis, 
Dejecit  acer  plus  vice  simplici, 
Major  Neronum  mox  grave  proelium 
Commisit,  immanesque  Rhaetos 

Auspiciis  pepulit  secundis; 
Spectandus,  in  certamine  Martio, 
Devota  morti  pectora  liberae 
Quantis  fatigaret  minis, 

Indomitas  prope  qualis  undas 
Exercet  Auster,  Pleiadum  choro 
Scindente  nubes,  impiger  hostium. 
Vexare  turmas,  et  frementem 
Mittere  equum  medios  per  ignes. 
That  Historical  Progress  which  Goldwin  Smith 
has  spent  so  much  time  and  eloquence,  research  and 
magnanimous  zeal  to  defend,  expound  and  establish 
is  the  panorama  of  a  constant  struggle,  much  of  it  in 
literal  war,  in  sanguinary  revolt  and  oppression,  in 
alternating  victory  and  defeat  of  rival  principles,  and 
nowhere,  at  no  time,  exempt  from  the  dominating  or 
discernible  stains  of  Sin,  indeed  absolutely  the  result 
of  that  very  thing.    Would  a  community  or  communi- 
ties of  sinless  impeccable  industrious  workmen  or  mer- 

[186] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

chantmen  make  of  history  a  literary  fabric?  Let 
them  be  governed  by  self  respecting  and  beneficent 
rulers,  or  let  them  govern  themselves  with  discretion, 
rigid  rectitude,  unsullied  principles  and  their  succes- 
sive generations  succeed  each  other  in  a  persistent  de- 
sire and  achievement  to  illustrate  goodness,  and  dis- 
tribute justice,  what  likelihood  that  the  annals  of  such 
an  aggregate  would  require  the  noblest  powers  of 
language  to  detail  their  sumptuary  precision,  or  their 
correct  deportment? 

Granting  them  art,  and  science,  and  adventure, 
would  the  historian  find  involved  in  their  lives  the 
stimulating  oscillations  of  events,  and  the  emphatic 
relief  of  personalities  which  fiH  the  pages  of  a  Clar- 
endon or  a  Machievelli?  Heaven  or  a  perfect  state 
of  society  would  be  unproductive  of  a  Robertson, 
Froude,  or  a  Guizot.  The  history  of  the  Quakers 
would  never  rival  as  a  literary  recreation  the  annals 
of  Dahomey.  The  quiet  and  decorous  communities 
with  the  benignancy  of  virtue  bodily  present  in  their 
acts  and  doings  would  hardly  invite  the  scrutiny  of 
Livy  or  Tacitus. 

I  have  signified  war  as  a  typical  influence  in  giving 
literary-subject-matter  in  History,  because  it  is  so 
prevalent,  and  fills  the  pages  of  history  with  such  an 
abundance  of  tremendous  tableaux  of  startling 

[187] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

changes,  of  furious  and  accentuated  movements,  and 
because  it  quite  usually  embodies  a  great  part  or  all 
of  those  emotions  which  make  us  sinful. 

But  it  requires  but  a  moment's  inspection  of  the 
varied  story  of  man's  life  upon  this  fantastic  stage  of 
affairs,  from  the  first  murder  of  Abel  to  the  last  con- 
nivance of  rapacity  in  the  conscienceless  nations  of 
Europe  for  the  spoils  of  China's  division  and  plunder, 
to  feel  impressed  with  the  remorseless  presence  of  Sin 
in  all  the  chapters  of  that  long  tale.  And  the  longer 
such  an  inspection  lasts,  the  more  carefully  the  gazer 
or  reader  follows  the  tortuous  infusion  of  every  sort  of 
depravity,  vice,  cruelty,  excess,  madness,  ambition, 
mendacity,  hypocrisy,  and  bestiality,  the  more  con- 
vincing seems  the  inference  that  the  most  prolific  in- 
vention could  not  create  a  storehouse  of  materials, 
whose  relation  invited  more  adroitness,  more  elo- 
quence, which  offered  more  stirring  episodes  or 
touched  the  artistic  mind  with  a  more  indelible  fasci- 
nation of  interest. 

And  were  the  hypothetical  subject  of  this  inspec- 
tion, someone,  let  us  presume  or  imagine,  endowed 
with  a  keen  susceptibility  to  the  availability  of  its 
lightest  detail  for  literary  treatment,  must  he  not,  upon 
reflection  on  the  contrasted  hopelessness  of  a  record 
of  undeviating  righteousness  to  invite  any  response 

[188] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

from  inquisitive  minds;  conclude  that  History  for  its 
consummate  beauty,  and  the  possession  of  its  multi- 
tudinous galleries  of  portraiture  and  characterization, 
its  dramatic  power  and  progress,  its  literary  perfection 
must  have  poured  into  it  the  swirling  and  turbid  cur- 
rents of  Man's  Sinfulness.  Such  an  observer  might 
use  the  words,  with  an  ulterior  sense,  that  Byron  puts 
in  the  mouth  of  Dante: 
From  out  the  mass  of  never-dying  ill, 

The  Plague,  the  Prince,  the  Stranger,  and  the 

Sword, 
Vials  of  wrath  but  emptied  to  refill 

And  flow  again,  I  cannot  all  record 
That  crowds  on  my  prophetic  eye :  the  earth 

And  ocean  written  o'er  would  not  afford 
Space  for  the  annal,  yet  it  shall  go  forth ; 

Yes  all,  though  not  by  human  pen  is  graven, 
There  where  the  farthest  suns  and  stars  have  birth 

Spread  like  a  banner  at  the  gate  of  heaven, 
The  bloody  scroll  of  (earth's)  millenial  wrongs 

Waves,  and  the  echo  of  its  groans  is  driven 
Athwart  the  sound  of  archangelic  songs. 

It  is  not  likely  that  the  stately  glowing  and  fervid 
pages  of  Motley  would  have  preserved  their  verbal 
elevation  and  splendor  if  the  same  mind  that  wrote 
them  had  been  compelled  to  give  the  world  the  dull 

[189] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

but  generally  homogeneously  moral  and  happy  story 
of  the  Dutch  burgers  on  Manhattan  Island.  The 
History  of  the  New  World  in  its  modern  period, 
could  scarcely  yield  the  opportunities  which  the  Old 
World  of  Europe  offers  to  literary  adventure,  and  ex- 
ploits; because  in  Europe  the  barbarism  and  worth- 
lessness  of  human  nature  are  so  notable  and  persist- 
ent, its  vehemence  of  wickedness,  its  subtlety  of  crime, 
its  ferocity  of  greed,  its  false  governments  with  their 
sinful  and  sinning  agents  and  agencies,  their  direct 
encouragement  of  perverted  emotions,  or  downright 
diabolism,  the  fundamental  falsity  of  all  judgment  has 
made,  in  a  measure  still  keeps,  Europe  for  the  talent 
and  the  purposes  of  literature. 

The  New  World  can  never  produce  History  of 
exceptional  literary  interest  because  the  New  World 
is  good.  Its  best  results  lie  in  those  years  when 
European  wickedness  invaded,  devastated,  and  ruled 
it,  when  the  Spaniards  conquered  Mexico  and  Peru, 
when  it  fought  for  its  liberation,  and  in  the  eras  of  its 
own  slow  emergence  from  cruelty,  or  bigotry  or  shame 
or  political  turpitude,  a  heritage  from  Europe. 

The  History  of  the  Old  World  today  in  its  better 
condition,  its  gradual  unfolding  reasonableness  and 
greater  kindliness  and  sympathy  and  love  of  man, 
with  some  increase  in  good  behavior  will  never  again 

[190] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

excite  the  genius  of  History  to  produce  works  as 
Gibbons,  Hume,  Michelet,  Allison,  Ranke,  Sim- 
monds,  Thirwall,  have  left  us.  As  Russia  loses  its 
inhumaneness  and  inhumanity,  the  pages  of  Sienkie- 
wicz  in  the  With  Fire  and  Sword,  The  Deluge,  will 
escape  the  danger  forever  of  a  rival  who  might  wrest 
from  them  their  immense  and  absorbing  interest.  Pro- 
gressive betterment  over  the  whole  world  would 
rather  seriously  threaten  the  literary  excellence  of 
History. 

History  of  course  remains,  but  a  recountal  of  the 
successive  steps  in  the  evolution  of  a  sky-scraper,  or 
of  the  benign  influence  of  a  Mortgage  Tax,  will  not 
compete  successively  in  the  circulating  libraries  with 
a  narrative  of  the  insolent  butcheries  of  a  Commodus, 
the  paintings  of  the  fopperies  of  Louis  the  XIV,  or 
the  ludicrous  vanities  of  Frederic  the  Great,  the  mad- 
ness of  Peter  the  Great,  or  the  corrupt  inclinations  of 
Catherine  of  Russia. 

The  very  fact  that  society  approaches,  in  this  dem- 
ocratic day  a  more  ideal  form,  a  more  virtuous  or  just 
relation  of  men  to  men,  eliminates  a  group  of  con- 
spicuous sins,  in  the  vagaries,  extravagances,  lusts  and 
egotisms  of  individual  characters,  and,  by  just  so 
much  elimination,  robs  History  of  its  piquancy  and 
poignancy,  its  literary  availability.  It  substitutes  the 

[191] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

mass  for  the  unit,  and  the  mind  contemplates  wide 
sections  of  civic  virtue  instead  of  individual  crime. 

This  is  as  it  should  be,  but  the  obvious  conclusion 
remains  that  with  the  amelioration  of  manners,  the 
subjection  of  lawless  license,  the  suppression  of  splen- 
did incorrigible  and  undaunted  Vice,  of  the  gratifica- 
tion of  tyranny,  of  the  domination  of  prejudice,  the 
Literature  of  History  loses  color,  vivacity  and  great- 
ness, becomes  generally  less  conspicuously  adapted  for 
the  display  of  literary  gifts.  The  history  of  the  people 
in  their  avocations  and  pleasures,  customs,  and  in- 
dustries, the  pleasing  picture  of  old  times  when  mod- 
ern facilities  were  unthought  of,  and  modern  knowl- 
edge unsuspected,  do  indeed  afford  literary  material. 

Macaulay,  to  whom  the  honor  is  justly  due  of  hav- 
ing turned  the  glass  of  history  from  princes  and  mon- 
archs  diplomats  and  barons,  to  the  every  day  occu- 
pations of  the  people  has  said:  "it  will  be  my  en- 
deavor to  relate  the  history  of  the  people  as  well  as 
the  history  of  the  government,  to  trace  the  progress  of 
useful  and  ornamental  arts,  to  describe  the  rise  of 
religious  sects,  and  the  changes  of  literary  taste,  to 
portray  the  manners  of  successive  generations,  and  not 
to  pass  by  with  neglect  even  the  revolutions  which 
have  taken  place  in  dress,  furniture,  repasts  and  pub- 
lic amusements.  I  shall  cheerfully  bear  the  reproach 

[192] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

of  having  descended  below  the  dignity  of  history,  if 
I  can  succeed  in  placing  before  the  English  of  the 
nineteenth  century  a  true  picture  of  the  life  of  their 
ancestors." 

And  McMaster,  no  less  fascinating  in  his  History 
of  the  American  People  begins  that  most  entertaining 
narrative  with  these  inviting  sentences:  "yet  the  his- 
tory of  the  people  shall  be  the  chief  theme.  At  every 
stage  of  the  splendid  progress  which  separates  the 
America  of  Washington  and  Adams  from  the  Amer- 
ica in  which  we  live,  it  shall  be  my  purpose  to  describe 
the  dress,  the  occupations,  the  amusements,  the  liter- 
ary canons  of  the  times ;  to  note  the  changes  of  man- 
ners and  morals;  to  trace  the  growth  of  that  humane 
spirit  which  abolished  punishment  for  debt,  which 
reformed  the  discipline  of  prisons  and  of  jails,  and 
which  has,  in  our  own  time,  destroyed  slavery  and 
lessened  the  miseries  of  dumb  brutes.  Nor  shall  it 
be  less  my  aim  to  recount  the  manifold  improvements 
which,  in  a  thousand  ways,  have  multiplied  the  con- 
veniences of  life  and  ministered  to  the  happiness  of  our 
race;  to  describe  the  rise  and  progress  of  that  long 
series  of  mechanical  inventions  and  discoveries  which 
is  now  the  admiration  of  the  world,  and  our  just  pride 
and  boast;  to  tell  how,  under  the  benign  influence  of 
liberty  and  peace,  there  sprang  up,  in  the  course  of 

[193] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

a  single  century,  a  prosperity  unparalleled  in  the  an- 
nals of  human  affairs ;  how,  from  a  state  of  great  pov- 
erty and  feebleness,  our  country  grew  rapidly  to  one 
of  opulence  and  power ;  how  her  agriculture  and  her 
manufacture  flourished  together;  how,  by  a  wise  sys- 
tem of  free  education  and  a  free  press,  knowledge  was 
disseminated,  and  the  arts  and  sciences  advanced; 
how  the  ingenuity  of  her  people  became  fruitful  of 
wonders  far  more  astonishing  than  any  of  which  the 
alchemists  had  ever  dreamed." 

Yet  after  all  both  Macaulay  and  McMaster  would 
have  found  that  the  sinews  of  their  story  were  absent, 
the  dramatic  power  and  interest  of  their  pages  van- 
ished if  the  temper,  collisions,  short  sightedness,  viru- 
lence, ambition,  sins  and  vices,  of  public  characters, 
the  pressure  of  popular  delusions,  the  knavery  of  indi- 
viduals and  associations  had  not  entered  the  currents 
of  their  histories,  and  forced  from  them  appreciation 
and  analysis,  comment,  description,  criticism,  and 
praise.  The  motor  force  of  events  seem  somehow  to 
proceed  from  the  imperfections  of  men,  whether  they 
are  sins  or  ignorances,  or  from  their  sufferings,  and 
without  events,  History  as  a  literary  phenomenon 
would  soon  decline  into  a  colorless  and  vapid  tale. 
The  inquiry  of  Lucan  in  the  very  first  lines  of  his 

[194] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

Civil  War  are  pertinent  to  all  stages  of  History,  which 
fasten  and  fascinate  the  ears  and  eyes  of  men : 
Jamque  irae  patuere  deum,  manifestaque  belli 
Signa  dedit  mundus :  legesque,  et  foedera  rerum, 
Praescia  monstrifero  vertit  natura  tumultu, 
Indixitque  nefas,  cur  hanc  tibi  rector  Olympi 
Sollicitis  visum  mortalibus  addere  curam, 
Noscant  Venturas  ut  dira  per  omina  clades? 
At  this  point  it  is  desirable  to  consider  that  the  sins 
of  mere  brutishness  are  not  as  diversified  or  in  any 
way  as  interesting  as  those  of  refinement  and  intellect, 
and  of  the  higher  range  of  cultivated  and  gifted  na- 
tures, and  never  furnish  the  historian  or  the  romancer 
with  the  finer  grades  of  literary  stuff.    The  cruelty  of 
Verres  versa/us  que  sit,  sine  ulla,  non  modo  religione, 
verum  etiam  dissimulatione,  in  omni  genere  furandi 
atque  praedandi,    is  more  interesting,  and  certainly 
less  excusable  than  the  brutality  of  a  street  loafer,  and 
the  turpitude  of  Cataline,  furentem  audacia,  scelus 
anhelantem,  pestem  patriae  nefarie  molientem,  more 
serviceable  for  literary  workmanship  (witness  Cicero's 
orations)  than  the  iniquities  of  a  McKane,  boss  of 
Coney  Island,  admirably  as  Edward  M.  Shepard  has 
used  the  latter  for  purposes  of  consummate  descrip- 
tion and  characterization. 

[195] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

As  hounds  and  greyhounds,  mongrels,  spaniels,  curs, 
Shoughs,  water-rugs,  and  demi-wolves,  are  cleped 
All  by  the  name  of  dogs :  the  valued  file 
Distinguishes  the  swift,  the  slow,  the  subtle, 
The  house  keeper,  the  hunter,  every  one 
According  to  the  gift  which  bounteous  nature 
Hath  in  him  closed,  whereby  he  does  receive 
Particular  addition,  from  the  bill 
That  writes  them  all  alike ;  and  so  of  men. 

Sins  of  men  in  History  administer  to  our  literary 
pleasure,  because  of  picturesque  accompaniments, 
because  they  are  of  psychological  interest,  (see  the 
curious  and  learned  speculations  of  S.  Baring  Gould 
on  the  congenital  insanity  of  the  Caesars)  because 
they  fascinate  us  by  a  certain  terror,  a  weird  semb- 
lance in  our  own  souls  or  understanding  and  appreci- 
ation, a  sensational  delight  in  monstrous  things,  a 
trembling  sense  of  expurgation,  guilt  and  sympathy, 
the  power  of  subjugating  immensity,  because  of  their 
sinister  significance,  because  of  their  wide  inalienable 
concordance  with  the  nature  of  things,  because  they 
start  a  retinue  of  stirring  events,  and  tumultuously 
throw  into  the  arena  of  the  world  the  sharp  passion- 
ate conflict  of  good  and  evil.  This  indeed  is  the  last 
and  most  pervasive  and  real  quality  of  their  effective- 
ness as  literary  agents. 

[196] 


SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE 

It  is  the  picture  of  improvement,  of  rising  against 
the  massed  bodies  of  selfishness,  error,  lunacy,  stub- 
bornness, apathy,  tyranny,  cruelty,  priggishness  and 
lust,  the  apparent  predetermination  that  makes  of 
men's  willfulness  or  ambition,  serviceable  instruments 
in  the  forward  motion  of  the  world  that  charms  us. 
For  in  every  sense  what  gives  dramatic  force  to  the 
History  of  this  Earth,  but  the  ingrained  and  rooted 
deviltry  of  things?  The  mystery  of  its  redemption, 
the  pathos  of  its  suffering,  the  intensity  of  that  earnest- 
ness which  in  noble  souls  breeds  that  desperate  revolt 
against  ruling  conditions,  and  perpetually  engages  in 
new  campaigns  for  restoration  and  purity;  all  these 
aspects  rise  from  the  phenomenon  of  Sin,  make  His- 
tory literary,  and  produce  engrossing  and  masterly 
studies,  analyses,  and  volumes  of  immortal  prose. 


[197] 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  SIN  SUBSTANCE  OF  LITERATURE  IN 
DRAMA  AND  POETRY 

Browning  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Paracelsus  these 
singular  and  damning  words : 

Festus,  were  your  nature  fit 
To  be  defiled,  your  eyes  the  eyes  to  ache 
At  gangrene-blotches,  eating  poison-blains, 
The  ulcerous  barky  scurf  of  leprosy 
Which  finds — a  man,  and  leaves — a  hideous  thing 
That  cannot  but  be  mended  by  hell  fire, 
I  would  lay  bare  to  you  the  human  heart 
Which  God  cursed  long  ago,  and  devils  make  since 
Their  pet  nest  and  their  never-tiring  home. 

We  will  admit  the  words  are  over-wrought,  the 
outpourings  of  a  frenzied  and  disappointed  nature, 
also  saved  from  parched  and  feeble  judgments  by  its 
resolute  and  frantic  frankness,  its  insight.  These  are 
memorable  words  because  they  exaggerate — and  ex- 
aggeration is  a  kind  of  sin — because  they  draw  out 
the  margins  of  a  fact  until  it  becomes  a  spectre,  a  ter- 
ror and  by  this  procedure  of  caricature  make  us  think 
more  closely  on  the  truth  they  burlesque. 

The  words  of  Paracelsus  may  seem  like  "wild  and 

[198] 


SIN    IN     DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

whirling"   words,   but   they   emphasize   the   matter 
clearly  enough ;  that  in  the  human  heart,  with  its  wide 
envisagement  of  irregular  and  monstrous  feelings  we 
may  expect  to  find  the  motives  for  stirring  deeds. 
Cut  out  from  the  stock  in  trade  of  the  dramatist  the 
emotions  that  disturb  society,  mar  conjugal  ties,  or 
bliss,  hasten  revolutions,  instigate  murder  and  arson, 
those  that  blind  the  eyes  with  jealousy,  distort  the 
features  or  sear  the  heart  with  grief,  those  that  feed 
envy  with  rapine,  and  assuage  discontent  with  ven- 
geance, those  that  cheat  the  heart  with  temptations 
or  freeze  the  mind  with  suicide;  destroy  all  these, 
banish  them,  involve  them  in  a  psychological  anni- 
hilation so  profound  and  extensive  that 
at  that  very  moment, 
Consideration  like  an  angel  came, 
And  whipp'd  the  offending  Adam  out  of  us 
Leaving  our  bodies  as  a  paradise, 
T'envelope  and  contain  celestial  spirits. 
Do  this  and  how  could  the  entranced  mind  follow 
the  fatality  that  dethroned  Caesar,  or  crazed  Othello, 
blinded  Macbeth,  or  heaped  on  Timon  the  contumely 
of  the  world?     Of  course  these  plays  are  written. 
They  can  never  be  rewritten  but  can  the  mind  con- 
ceive such  masterpieces  arising  in  a  world  of  spir- 
itual beauty,  individual  perfection,  social  benignity, 

[199] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

animal  consecration;  in  a  world  upon  whose  altars 
burns  nothing  less  pure  than  the  oil  of  humility  and 
the  incense  of  adoration?  Emerson  says,  "a  man  is 
a  bundle  of  relations,  a  knot  of  roots,  whose  flower 
and  fruitage  is  the  world.  His  faculties  refer  to 
natures  out  of  him,  and  predict  the  world  he  is  to  in- 
habit, as  the  fins  of  the  fish  foreshow  that  water  exists, 
or  the  wings  of  an  eagle  in  the  egg  pre-suppose  air. 
He  cannot  live  without  a  world.  Put  Napoleon  in 
an  island  prison,  let  his  faculties  find  no  men  to  act 
on,  no  Alps  to  climb,  no  stake  to  play  for,  and  he 
would  beat  the  air  and  appear  stupid." 

This  describes  the  dramatist.  Put  him  in  a  world 
without  contacts  and  responses  in  evil  or  imperfect 
natures,  without  the  myriad  phased  conditions  of 
weak  or  wicked  action,  without  the  splendors  of  mag- 
nificent crime,  or  its  sordidness,  without  the  retinue  of 
disasters,  eruptions,  desolations,  and  remorse,  that 
follows  in  its  train,  without  passion,  excess,  intemper- 
ance, and  subterfuge,  and  he  would  shrink  into  a 
pusillanimous  versifier,  a  rural  mimic,  a  Thesbian 
piper,  a  decorous  emitter  of  flaccid  and  sleepy  dia- 
logue, his  plays  would  be  motionless,  his  plots  vacuity, 
his  denouements  and  climaxes  normal  coincidences 
with  a  certain  time  on  the  dial  of  a  clock.  Look  at  the 
drama  in  all  its  large  and  typical  developments,  in 

[200] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

all  its  epochs  of  literary  immensity,  intensity,  and 
greatness. 

The  plays  of  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles,  .the  deca- 
dent Euripides,  and  the  mad  burlesquer  Aristophanes 
are  strenuous  with  power,  when  they  have  it,  because 
they  are  strenuous  with  sin.  The  author  can  speak  in 
this  matter  at  second  hand  only.  His  Greek  has  the 
slenderest  growth  and  barely  suffices  to  dimly  illum- 
inate with  meaning  the  verses  of  Homer.  But  John 
Addington  Symonds,  amongst  other  scholars  less  ade- 
quately gifted  with  poetic  insight,  has  devoted  pages 
of  eloquent  English,  to  an  analysis  and  review  of  the 
wonderful  creations  of  Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  and 
Euripides,  and  with  marvelous  sympathy  rendered  in- 
telligible, in  a  manner,  the  extravagance  of  Aristo- 
phanes. 

Symonds  points  out  for  us,  in  his  powerful  and 
expressive  way,  the  determinative  features  of  these 
plays  and  some  sort  of  Sin — of  course  in  conjunction 
with  much  Misery  and  Ignorance — underlies  their 
literary  splendor,  furnishes  the  impulses  of  their  move- 
ment, and  inflames,  or  inspires  (as  you  please),  their 
terrific  and  portentous  meanings.  He  says  Aeschy- 
lus "apprehended  immaterial  and  elemental  forces — 
as  lusts,  ambitions  and  audacities  of  soul — as  though 
they  were  substantial  entities,  and  gave  them  shape 

[201] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

and  form."  The  imposing  and  grand  outlines  of 
Clytemnestra's  wicked  resoluteness  are  described  for 
us  as  Aeschylus  has  depicted  them  in  the  drama  of 
Agamemnon. 

The  delineator  thus  teaches  to  us  her  character  and 
temperament,  "the  solidity  of  Clytemnestra's  charac- 
ter is  impressed  upon  us  with  a  force  and  a  reality  of 
presentation  that  have  never  been  surpassed.  She 
maintains  the  same  aplomb,  the  same  cold  glittering 
energy  of  speech,  the  same  presence  of  mind  and 
unswerving  firmness  of  nerve,  whether  she  bandies 
words  of  bitter  irony  with  the  Chorus,  or  ceremon- 
iously receives  the  King,  or  curls  the  lip  of  scorn  at 
Cassandra,  or  defies  the  Argives  after  Agamemnon's 
(whom  she  murders)  death.  She  loves  power  and 
despises  show.  When  the  deed  is  done,  and  fair 
words  are  no  longer  needed,  her  hypocrisy  is  cast 
aside.  At  the  same  time  she  defends  herself  with  a 
moral  impudence  which  is  only  equalled  by  her  intel- 
lectual skill,  and  rises  at  last  to  the  sublimity  of  arro- 
gance when  she  asserts  her  right  to  be  regarded  as  the 
incarnate  demon  of  the  house.  Her  sin  feeds  and 
nourishes  her  nature,  instead  of  starving  and  palsy- 
ing it ;  her  soul  grows  fat  and  prospers,  nor  does  she 
know  what  conscience  means.  " 

This  whole  play,  as  those  of  Aeschylus,  deal  with 

[202] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

the  stages  of  retributive  justice,  as  a  Fate  or  Destiny 
a  Nemesis,  working  out  some  supreme  plan  of  super- 
natural recompense,  and  brought  into  play  by  the 
errors,  the  contumacy,  the  Sin,  of  men,  or  of  gods. 
The  splendid  proportions  of  the  sinful  deeds  of  men 
in  Aeschylus  gives  a  majesty  and  unapproachable 
terror  and  agony  to  the  drama,  and  communicates  a 
glory  and  inspiring  power  to  the  diction.  The  very 
conflict  of  human  motives  and  desires  and  the  un- 
swerving ends  of  justice  accumulate  a  storm  of  emo- 
tions, which  strain  the  limits  of  poetic  power  to  give 
them  utterance,  and  thus  the  motive  force  of  Sin 
supplies — what  Goodness,  or  Placidity,  or  Excel- 
lence, or  Orderliness,  or  Innocence,  could  never  sup- 
ply— the  rushing  torrents  of  expression  which  give 
Aeschylus  his  colossal  place  amongst  poets,  is  the 
source  of  his  literary  fame. 

His  titanic  imagination  carries  him  still  further. 
He  climbs  the  skies  and  assails  the  recesses  of  the 
Ethics  of  the  Skies.  He  shows  us  Prometheus  strug- 
gling against  the  irrevocable  selfishness  of  Zeus — him- 
self thus  entangled  in  the  widespread  meshes  of  Sin 
that  like  a  universal  web  throws  its  skeins  of  disorder 
over  stars  and  earths — mutinous  to  fulfill  a  noble  en- 
thusiasm, and  lift  men  high  enough  to  resist  the  un- 
governable rapacity  of  the  Heavens. 

[203] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Prometheus  "found  humanity  abject  and  forsaken 
by  the  gods.  Zeus,  who  had  recently  seized  upon  the 
empire  of  the  universe,  designed  to  extirpate  men 
from  the  world,  and  to  create  a  new  race  after  his 
own  heart.  Prometheus  took  pity  upon  them,  saved 
them  from  destruction,  gifted  them  with  fire,  the 
mother  of  all  arts,  taught  them  carpentry  and  hus- 
bandry, revealed  to  them  the  stars,  whereby  they 
knew  the  order  of  the  seasons  and  recurrences  of 
crops,  instructed  them  in  letters,  showed  them  how  to 
tame  the  horse  and  ox,  and  how  to  plow  the  sea  with 
ships,  then  taught  them  medicine  and  the  cure  of 
wounds,  then  divination  and  the  sacrifice  of  victims 
to  propitiate  the  gods,  and  lastly  how  to  smelt  the  ore 
contained  within  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  All  these 
good  things  Prometheus  gave  to  men." 

However  interpreted  for  it  is  a  dismaying  paradox, 
the  drama  furnishes  the  author  with  a  spectacle  of 
disorder,  of  revolt,  of  cruelty,  of  recrimination, 
mingled,  as  turpitude  and  conflict  always  must  be, 
with  Misery  and  Ignorance,  and  thus,  in  the  tumult 
and  preordained  antagonism  of  Obedience  and  Dis- 
obedience, warring  on  a  scale  of  mythic  immensity, 
he  finds  the  impulses  to  great  creative  writing.  Can 
anything  be  truer? 

In  the  Triology  of  the  Oresteia — "the  masterpiece 

[204] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

of  Aeschylus  as  a  dramatic  poet" — Aeschylus  we  are 
told  "has  plucked  the  last  fruit  upon  the  Upas-tree 
of  crime  which  flourished  in  the  palace  of  Mycenae." 
Here  are  assembled  the  crimes  of  Agamemnon,  of 
Clytemnestra,  of  Aegisthus,  the  assault  of  the  Furies 
upon  Orestes,  the  murder  of  Cassandra;  doom  and 
punishment,  the  thickened  horrors  of  remorseless  Des- 
tiny, gather  in  a  darkness  that  is  only  relieved  by  the 
forceful  perfection  of  the  poet's  verse.  With  what 
muscular  skill  of  words  Symonds  paints  it!  "As  the 
Chorus  cries,  the  rain  of  blood,  that  hitherto  has  fallen 
drop  by  drop,  descends  in  torrents  on  the  house  of 
Atreus ;  but  the  end  is  not  yet. 

The  whole  tragedy  becomes  yet  more  sinister  when 
we  regard  it  as  the  prelude  to  ensuing  tragedies,  as 
the  overture  to  fresh  symphonies  and  similar  catastro- 
phes. W ave  after  Wave  of  passion  gathers  and 
breads  in  these  stupendous  scenes;  the  ninth  wave 
mightier  than  all,  with  a  crest  whereof  the  spray  is 
blood,  falls  foaming;  over  the  outspread  surf  of  gore 
and  ruin;  the  curtain  drops,  to  rise  upon  the  self-same 
theatre  of  new  woes."  It  is  useless  to  consider  this 
as  the  sin  substance  of  Literature,  without  also  irrime- 
diately  recognizing  the  simultaneous  presence  of  Ig- 
norance and  Misery  in  it  all. 

Intellectual  and  Moral  Ignorance,  the  fateful  moan- 
[205] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ings  of  beings  immersed  in  a  sea  of  contradictions, 
submerged  beneath  the  mystery  of  portents,  warnings, 
signs,  and  inscrutable  decisions,  and  with  that  goes 
Misery,  physical,  mental,  spiritual.  It  was  the  con- 
templation of  all  this  that  stirred  the  imagination,  gave 
life  to  the  language,  supplied  it  with  imagery,  inflamed 
the  mind,  and  gathered  to  the  lips  of  the  poet,  by  a 
preordained  congruity,  the  words  of  inspiration.  We 
touch  upon  a  deep  psychologic-literary  truth.  The 
dramas  of  Aeschylus  could  not  have  been  written  in 
the  Garden  of  Eden,  nor  could  any  dramas  as  good 
have  been  written  there. 

This  is  of  interest.  For  in  passing  we  may  observe 
that  while  it  is  true  that  "he  who  rules  o'er  freemen 
must  himself  be  free,"  Dr.  Johnson's  querulous  re- 
joinder is  not  true,  that  "he  who  kills  fat  porkers  must 
himself  be  fat."  In  the  first  case  there  is  constructive 
temperamental  sympathy  between  Ruler  and  Ruled; 
in  the  second  there  is  (certainly  no  sympathy)  physi- 
cal resemblance.  The  dramatist  who  shows  us  the 
terrors  of  guilt,  the  power  of  character,  the  tumult  of 
remorse,  must  realize,  in  a  manner,  in  himself  (with- 
out going  so  far  as  Mrs.  Patrick  Campbell,  who  seems 
to  think  that  the  delineator  on  the  stage  of  a  woman's 
fall  must  have  stepped  down  herself)  the  elements  of 
the  crime,  the  character,  the  remorse. 

[206] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

The  stage  of  our  action  and  being  in  this  world 
involves,  in  the  literary  exemplifications  of  its  aspects 
of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery,  some  analogy  between 
the  state  of  the  writer  and  the  emotions  he  depicts. 
At  any  rate  he  must  quite  deeply  understand  them. 
By  any  conceivably  absolutely  pure  and  perfect  mind 
and  heart  the  literary  effectiveness  of  Sin,  Ignorance 
and  Misery,  could  not  be  developed.  The  acquaint- 
ance with  them,  as  temporary  feeling  only,  would  be 
absent. 

But  Sin — to  come  back  to  this  pervasive  literary 
motive  in  drama — is  perhaps,  abstractly  considered, 
and  considered  in  all  its  phases,  light,  trivial,  and 
tragic — the  most  likely  element  to  give  dramatic 
movement,  contrast,  climaxes,  denouments,  plot.  It 
supplies  situations  that  exhaust  emotion  and  stimu- 
late expression,  and  its  variety  is  extraordinary.  Good- 
ness by  comparison  seems  monotonous,  it — Sin — runs 
in  its  daedalian  web  of  mutations  all  the  way  from 
murder,  rapine,  brutality,  through  phases  of  refined 
cruelty,  subtle  enmity,  mixed  passions,  to  the  evanes- 
cent and  just  cloud-like  blemishes  of  ill-humour,  irri- 
tation, trickery  and  the  equivoque. 

Eliminate  from  any  play,  the  reader  admires,  all 
human  imperfection  and  what  remains  of  the  play  as 
a  work  of  effective  and  stirring  interest?  Nothing. 

[207] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

The  very  atmosphere  of  this  earth  with  its  vague 
unrest,  repining  sorrows,  combat  and  struggle  and 
deliberate  vice,  forms  dramatic  stuff  as  fast  as  the 
mothers  of  the  human  family  can  produce  children. 
Heaven  is  hopelessly  out  of  the  question  as  a  place 
where  we  may  expect  to  get  good  dramatic  literature, 
and  it  is  grotesquely  improbable  that  there  will  be 
any  kind  of  theatres  there!  Of  course  it  can  be 
frankly  admitted  that  goodness  is  necessary  for  our 
dramatic  situations. 

We  must  have  the  conflict,  and  the  probable  force 
of  Sin  as  a  dramatic  motor  lies  in  the  revolt  alarm  and 
protest  we  instinctively  feel  before  it.  But  pushing 
our  claim  to  its  last  extreme  we  think  that  a  possible 
Hell  would  produce  some  sort  of  a  stage  exceeding 
in  literary  brilliancy  anything  another  possible  Heaven 
could  do  in  that  line. 

Then  again  Hell,  from  the  inexpugnable  nature  of 
Goodness  and  Conscience,  and  their  deepseated  ap- 
proval, would  probably  furnish  some  glimmerings  of 
contrast  in  its  dramatic  creations,  but  Heaven,  from 
the  transitory  and  passing  nature  of  Sin,  would  afford 
none,  and  its  plays  would  be  or  will  be  incandescent 
visions,  unrelieved  by  shadows,  and  half  tones,  and, 
as  artistic  masterpieces,  useless,  perfunctory,  and  flat. 

The  sadness,  the  pathos,  the  Misery  of  Aeschylus' 

[208] 


SIN    IN     DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

Agamemnon,  his  Choephorae,  and  Eumenides  need 
not  be  recalled  here,  but  a  moment's  thought  over 
their  heaped  up  majesty  and  depth  of  woe,  their  in- 
spired utterance  of  suffering,  their  blind  fortuity  and 
intimations  of  human  darkness,  engraves  upon  our 
mind  the  hopelessness  of  expecting  to  find  in  Heaven 
dramatic  power,  and  the  consequent  restrained  and 
expurgated  and  insipid  quality  of  its  Theatre. 

In  Sophocles  we  find,  as  Symonds  tells  us,  an  art 
"distinguished  above  all  things  by  its  faultless  sym- 
metry, its  grace  and  rhythm,  and  harmonious  equi- 
poise of  strength  and  beauty."  Sophocles  introduced 
new  features  in  the  theatre,  increased  the  number  of 
actors,  and  while  diminishing  the  immensity  of  the 
action  developed  the  detail  of  character,  and  gener- 
ally humanized  the  superhuman  vigor  of  Aeschylus 
with  more  moderation  and  balance,  and,  it  might  be 
said,  expanded  the  play  by  adding  intricacy.  We 
have  seven  tragedies  of  Sophocles:  Oedipus  Colon- 
eus,  Oedipus  Tyrrannus,  Antigone,  Philoctetes, 
Trachiniae,  Electra,  Ajax. 

We  may  follow  our  guides  and  point  only  to  the 
tragedies  based  on  the  tale  of  Thebes,  as  illustrating 
our  thesis  in  the  particular  here  emphasized — Sin  as  a 
literary  substance:  "the  house  of  Laius  was  scarcely 
less  famous  among  the  Greeks  than  the  house  of 

[209] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Atreus  for  its  overwhelming  disasters,  the  conse- 
quences of  an  awful  curse  which  rested  on  the  family. 
Laius,  the  son  of  Labdacus,  was  supposed  to  have 
introduced  an  unnatural  vice  into  Hellas;  and  from 
this  first  crime  sprang  all  the  subsequent  disasters  of 
his  progeny.  He  took  in  marriage  Jocasta,  the  sister 
of  Prince  Creon,  and  swayed  the  state  of  Thebes. 
To  him  an  oracle  was  given  that  a  son  of  his  by 
Jocasta  should  kill  him.  Yet  he  did  not  therefore, 
in  obedience  to  the  divine  warning  put  away  his  wife 
or  live  in  chastity.  A  boy  was  born  to  the  royal  pair, 
who  gave  him  to  one  of  their  shepherds,  after  piercing 
his  feet  and  tying  them  together,  and  bound  the  hind 
to  expose  him  on  Cithaeron.  Thus  they  hoped  to 
defeat  the  will  of  heaven.  The  shepherd  moved  by 
pity,  saved  the  baby's  life  and  handed  him  over  to  a 
friend  of  his,  who  used  to  feed  his  master's  sheep 
upon  the  hill-pastures.  This  man  carried  the  infant, 
named  Oedipus  because  of  his  wounded  and  swollen 
feet,  to  Polybus  of  Corinth,  a  childless  king,  who 
brought  him  up  as  his  own  son.  Oedipus,  when  he 
had  grown  to  manhood,  was  taunted  with  his  obscure 
birth  by  his  comrades  in  Corinth.  Thereupon  he 
journeyed  alone  to  Delphi  to  make  inquiry  concern- 
ing his  parentage  from  Phoebus. 

"Phoebus  told  him  nought  thereof,  but  bade  him 

[210] 


SIN    IN     DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

take  heed  lest  he  slay  his  father  and  wed  his  mother. 
Oedipus  deeming  that  Polybus  was  his  father  and 
Merope  his  mother,  determined  to  return  to  Corinth 
no  more.  At  that  time  Thebes  was  troubled  with  the 
visitation  of  the  Sphinx,  and  no  one  might  rede  her 
riddle.  Oedipus,  passing  through  the  Theban  land, 
was  met  in  a  narrow  path,  where  three  roads  joined, 
by  an  old  man  on  a  chariot  attended  by  servants. 

"The  old  man  spoke  rudely  to  him,  commanding 
him  to  make  way  for  his  horses,  and  one  of  the  ser- 
vants struck  him.  Whereupon  Oedipus  slew  the 
master,  knowing  not  that  he  was  his  own  father  Laius, 
and  the  men  too,  all  but  one,  who  fled.  Thereafter 
he  passed  on  to  the  Thebes,  and  solved  that  riddle 
of  the  Sphinx,  and  the  Thebans  made  him  their  king, 
and  gave  him  the  lady  Jocasta  to  be  his  wife.  Thus 
were  both  the  oracles  accomplished,  and  yet  Oedipus 
and  Jocasta  remained  ignorant  of  their  doom." 

The  pediment  of  Sin  thus  created  is  built  upon  to 
rear  dramatic  structures  of  great  perfection,  interest, 
and  symmetrical  development.  Splendid  situations, 
powerful  sketches,  moral  strength,  skill  and  the  im- 
aginative treatment  of  difficult  and  stimulating  crises, 
after  a  design  of  the  loftiest  literary  and  aesthetic 
beauty  are  all  discovered  in  these  wonderful  remnants 
of  the  Grecian  stage.  The  unfolding  and  deepening 

[211] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

of  the  character  of  Oedipus,  the  chastening  effects  of 
punishment  following  with  fateful  foot  the  track  of 
Sin,  the  pathetic  majesty  of  the  old  man  Oedipus, 
blind  and  conducted  by  the  noble  and  enthralling 
Antigone,  the  craven  submission  of  Creon,  the  infidel- 
ity of  the  perfidious  sons,  the  manly  and  magnani- 
mous friendship  of  King  Theseus  and,  ending  all  of 
this  gallery  of  pictures,  this  sublime  progress  of  linked 
and  fated  consequences  is  the  death  of  Oedipus,  and 
the  sacrifices  of  Antigone,  "who  is  willing,  lest  her 
brother  lie  unburied  on  the  Theban  plane,  to  lay  her 
own  life  down,  disobeying  the  law  of  her  sovereign, 
defying  Creon  to  the  face,  appealing  against  unjust 
tribunals  to  the  judgment  seat  of  powers  more  ancient 
than  the  throne  of  Zeus  himself,  and  marching  to  her 
living  tomb  with  dauntless  strength  in  order  that  the 
curse-attainted  ghost  of  Polyneices  shall  have  rest  in 
Hades." 

The  same  result  follows  our  inspection  of  the  Euri- 
pides, viz. :  that  the  substance  of  his  literary  products, 
his  plays,  is  Sin,  as  by  necessitous  conditions  of  human 
action,  as  generally  based  upon  an  assumed  superna- 
tural order  of  justice.  It  must  be  in  all  tragedies. 
Tragedies  so  far  as  Literature  exhibits  them  as  orna- 
ments, so  far  as  we  read  and  hear  them  as  aesthetic 
creations,  involve  the  contradiction  of  the  moral  law 

[212] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

or  some  violation  of  the  finest  standards  of  conduct — 
involve  Sin ;  or  else  give  us  the  mournful  and  bewild- 
ering picture  of  frustrated  hopes,  clouded  dreams,  per- 
secuted character,  in  short  a  picture  of  sorrow,  of 
Misery,  as  in  Goethe's  Egmont,  Schiller's  William 
Tell  and  Wallenstein,  and  no  hypothetical  Paradise 
— whatever  physical  or  mental  restoration  it  promises 
— will  ever  capture  our  approval  for  its  dramatic 
works,  for  Sin,  Ignorance,  or  Misery  ex  hypothesi  are 
absent  there. 

Without  dwelling  at  all  upon  the  Theatre  of 
France,  Spain,  and — what  there  is  of  it — of  Ger- 
many, let  us,  as  this  chapter  grows  inordinately  long, 
turn  to  the  English  stage  which  has  such  deserved 
preeminence  and  see  in  its  great  master  how,  not 
only  in  tragedy,  but  in  all  forms  of  drama  the  pro- 
creant  and  protean  agencies  of  Sin — understood  in 
the  wide  sense  hitherto  insisted  upon,  are  vividly 
and  continuously  mingled.  And  because  it  seems  un- 
necessary to  rehearse  the  rich  displays  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan stage  with  its  opulence  of  playwrights,  its  pro- 
fusion of  plays,  we  will  turn  the  pages  of  Shakespeare 
alone  for  the  complete  elucidation  of  our  theme. 

Shakespeare's  plays  are  the  most  human  and  beau- 
tiful of  dramatic  productions.  They  are  intensely 
human.  They  possess  that  fixed  quality  of  credibility 

[213] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

which  comes  from  our  feeling  that  they  are  true.  Their 
purely  imaginative  aspects,  as  in  the  Tempest,  the 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream  never  lessen  the  sweet 
reasonableness  of  every  character  associated  there 
with  delicate  and  bewitching  fancies. 

Authors,  as  W.  H.  Fleming,  have  instructively 
analyzed  them,  but  such  anatomy,  having  a  certain 
taxonomic  and  scientific  quality,  does  nothing  to 
show  how  they  were  created.  For  never  by  any  pos- 
sible chance  is  it  likely  that  Shakespeare  calculated 
Protasis,  Epitasis,  Peripeteia,  Katabasis,  Katastrophy, 
their  even  relation,  their  structural  curve.  Apart  from 
the  reflection  that  commentators  may,  in  the  vehe- 
ment plausibility  of  their  assumptions  make  a  Shakes- 
pearian drama  more  exact  and  formal  in  its  architec- 
ture than  it  really  is,  the  tacit  deduction  of  their  read- 
ers that  the  divine  author  worked  out  the  items  of  his 
drama's  excellence  according  to  some  studied  pre- 
cept, plan,  or  formula  is  a  jejune  and  silly  fallacy. 

Shakespeare's  art  was  art,  and  purposed  art,  but 
it  was  directed  by  the  instinct  for  character  rather  than 
for  structure.  Scenes  explicatory  and  commenta- 
tive  were  inserted  to  reveal  a  phase  of  temperament, 
not  so  much  to  vary,  to  lengthen  or  divert  or  hasten 
the  action  of  the  play.  His  work  is  not  always  help- 
fully arranged  for  the  stage,  but  it  seldom  fails,  upon 

[214] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

analysis,  to  exhibit  poetic  charm,  and  at  every  point 
to  build  out,  complete,  and  color  character. 

The  atmosphere  and  the  temperature  of  Shakes- 
peare's plays  are  earthly.  They  could  never  have 
been  achieved  in  Heaven,  or  in  any  hypothetical  dis- 
trict of  supernatural  bliss,  immaculate  manners,  and 
incorporeal  estates  of  being  where  flesh  and  blood, 
and  all  they  stand  for,  were  utterly  absent  and  abhor- 
rent. Sin  is  in  Shakespeare  from  beginning  to  end; 
sin  as  crime,  sin  as  the  genial  susceptibilities  of  carnal 
appetite,  sin  as  mischief,  roguery,  trickery,  intoxica- 
tion, sin  as  sly  humour,  insinuating  equivoque,  playful 
scandal,  delicate  innuendo,  the  heartless  taunt,  the 
thrust  of  satire,  the  cloudy  vaporings  of  vanity,  the 
sauciness  of  frippery,  foppery  and  fools,  the  gayety  of 
deceit  and  the  lewdness  of  gluttony  and  vice,  the 
comedy  of  pretence.  Sin  as  the  generalized  appella- 
tion for  the  irregularities,  the  excess,  defect,  the  mis- 
demeanors, misdeeds,  wickedness,  faults,  appetite, 
glamour,  sophistries,  weakness,  parade,  foolishness, 
the  amiable  and  unamiable  declensions  of  men,  is 
spread  widely  and  deeply  throughout  those  wondrous 
pages. 

For  to  come  to  the  meat  of  this  matter.  The 
aesthetic  artistic  and  literary  excellencies  of  the  race 
arise  from  a  disposition  saturated  in  all  its  cells  with 
[215] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

the  virus  of  the  old  serpent,  or  at  any  rate  with  the 
temporizing,  palliating  and  acquiescent  humours  of 
the  old  Adam.  It  is  a  mild  claim  but  it  offers  food 
for  thought.  It  is,  to  use  a  remark  of  Carlyle's,  in 
his  essay  on  Voltaire,  "  a  European  subject,  or  there 
never  was  one;  and  must,  if  we  would  in  the  least 
comprehend  it,  be  looked  at  neither  from  the  parish 
belfry,  nor  any  Peteloo  platform;  but  if  possible, 
from  some  natural  and  infinitely  higher  point  of 
vision." 

To  the  student  of  literature  Sin  as  an  incident  or  an 
accident  or  a  textural  and  irreconcilable  fact  has  no 
theological  import  or  even  moral  significance,  except 
as  it  gives  life  to  drama,  power  to  fiction,  and  mean- 
ing to  poetry.  He  knows  well  enough  that  there  is  a 
state  of  right  and  wrong,  such  things  as  good  and  bad 
feelings,  knows  it  not  only  from  a  glance  at  the  world 
but  from  a  review  of  his  own  superabundant  delin- 
quencies. But  he  hesitates  to  separate  physiology 
from  morals,  and  saves  himself  from  the  perplexities 
of  definition  by  fixing  his  eye  on  the  essence  of  interest 
in  the  play,  the  novel,  and  the  epic. 

And  with  his  eye  fixed  on  these  literary  constants, 
he  suddenly  becomes  aware  that  the  whole  web 
mass  and,  so  to  speak,  labyrinth  of  congenital  impulses 
in  man  which  in  mild,  definite,  or  drastic  ways,  are 

[2161 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

at  war  with  the  features  seen  or  desired  in  the  visions 
of  holy  men  of  Heaven;  furnish  the  impetus,  are  the 
exuberant  and  penetrating  sap  which  enters  the  man- 
ifold twigs,  branches  and,  indeed,  trunks  of  the  Tree 
of  Life,  nourishing,  and,  so  to  speak,  exhaling  various 
blooms,  noxious  flowers,  with  all  gaudy  and  high 
colored,  dull  drooping  and  dark  colored  flowers, 
hidden  and  loathsome  flowers,  flowers  of  changing 
hues,  capricious,  fleeting,  weak  and  deliquescent, 
gay  flowers,  flowers  variegated  in  color,  variously 
scented,  some  killing  with  transporting  aromas,  and 
others  confusingly  good  and  bad  in  their  emissions, 
but  all,  in  this  great  growth  of  the  Life  Tree;  like  a 
banyan  tree  spreading  its  ample  skirts  of  foliage 
throughout  the  world;  contributing  interest,  wonder- 
ment, and  inexhaustible  provocation  to  thought,  to 
fancy,  to  creative  enterprises,  the  wild,  willful  and 
exuberant  joy  of  artists,  and  poets,  and  story  tellers 
and  dreamers,  and  those  who  chase  facts  and  those 
who  chase  legends. 

For,  to  get  at  it  more  closely,  any  kind  of  ignor- 
ance is  Sin,  any  kind  of  darkness  natural,  congenital, 
or  acquired,  is  Sin,  any  kind  of  pretension  or  halting, 
broken  promises  or  incomplete  achievement  is  Sin, 
any  kind  of  inordinateness  or  excess  or  defect,  is  Sin, 
and  there  flowers  from  all  this  secondary  and  tertiary 

[2171 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

proliferous  and  smaller  magnitudes  of  Sin,  as  satire, 
and  invective,  and  indeed  wayward  jollity,  love  of 
pleasure,  too  abundant  mirth,  tricks,  shallowness, 
dullness,  humour,  a  wide  host  of  things  venial  and 
vendable,  and  simple;  but  yet  Sin,  or  ultimately 
traceable  thereto,  and  all  helpful,  indispensable,  to 
the  dramatist,  his  very  life,  being,  and  sustention. 

Carlyle  has  superbly  drawn  a  picture  of  the  social 
conditions  at  the  end  of  the  1 8th  century  in  his  essay 
on  Cagliostro ;  and  painted  the  myriad  hued  garment 
of  Sin  and  Sinfulness  then  covering  the  face  of  the 
earth.  Listen  to  him:  "the  portentous  extent  of 
Quackery,  the  multitudinous  variety  of  Quacks  that, 
along  with  our  Beppo  and  under  him,  each  in  his 
degree,  overran  all  Europe  during  that  same  period, 
the  latter  half  of  the  18th  century!  It  was  the  very 
age  of  impostors,  cutpurse,  swindlers,  double  goers, 
enthusiasts,  ambiguous  persons,  quacks  simple,  quacks 
compound;  crackbrained  or  with  deceit  prepense; 
quacks  and  quackery  of  all  colours  and  kinds.  How 
many  Mesmerists,  Magicians,  Cabalists,  Swedenbor- 
gians,  Illuminati,  Crucified  Nuns,  and  devils  of  Lou- 
dun,  to  which  the  Inquisition-Biographer  adds 
Vampires,  Sylphs,  Rosicrucians,  Freemasons,  and  an 
Etcetera.  Consider  your  Schropfers,  Cagliostros, 
Casanovas,  Saint-Germains,  Dr.  Grahams ;  the  Chev- 

[218] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

alier  d'Eon,  Psalmanazar,  Abbe  Paris,  and  the  Ghost 
of  Cock-lane!  As  if  Bedlam  had  broken  loose;  as 
if  rather  in  that  spiritual  Twelfth-hour  of  the  night, 
the  everlasting  Pit  had  opened  itself,  and  from  its  still 
blacker  bosom,  had  issued  Madness  and  all  manner  of 
shapeless  Misberths,  to  masquerade  and  chatter 
there."  Here  all  is  Sin,  amusing  and  vicious,  but 
what  room  for  the  scene  maker  and  scene  shifter, 
for  the  merry  maker,  the  dramatist  and  historian,"  in 
that  loud  roaring  Loom  of  Time  (where,  above  nine 
hundred  millions  of  hungry  Men,  for  one  item,  rest- 
lessly weave  and  work) ,  so  many  threads  fly  humming 
from  their  eternal  spindles;  and  swift  invisible  shut- 
tles, far  darting  to  the  Ends  of  the  World-complex" 
(Carlyle) ! 

Now  perhaps  it  is  very  hard  to  concede  that  our 
humour,  the  blessedest  privilege  of  life  and  the  eternal 
glory  of  Literature,  springs  also  from  this  inextricable, 
inexpugnable,  sap  and  fecund  juice,  (circulating  in 
our  system)  of  so-called  Sin,  or  at  least,  if  it  does  not, 
could  find  in  a  sinless  and  etherially  divine  world, 
such  as  theory  makes  Heaven,  no  opportunity  for  its 
pervasive  literary  usefulness. 

It  does  indeed  seem  hard,  for  of  true  humour  Car- 
lyle writes  thus  charmingly,  "true  humour  springs  not 
more  from  the  head  than  from  the  heart ;  it  is  not  con- 

[219] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

tempt,  its  essence  is  love;  it  issues  not  in  laughter  but 
in  still  smiles  which  lie  far  deeper.  It  is  a  sort  of  inverse 
sublimity;  exalting  as  it  were,  into  our  affections, 
what  is  below  us,  while  sublimity  draws  down  into 
our  affections  what  is  above  us.  The  former  is 
scarcely  less  precious  or  heart  affecting  than  the  latter; 
perhaps  it  is  still  rarer,  and,  as  a  test  of  genius  still 
more  decisive.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  bloom  and  perfume, 
the  purest  effluence  of  a  deep,  fine  and  loving  nature; 
a  nature  in  harmony  with  itself,  reconciled  to  the 
world  and  its  stintedness  and  contradiction,  nay  find- 
ing in  this  very  contradiction,  new  elements  of  beauty 
as  well  as  goodness.  Among  our  writers  Shakespeare 
in  this  as  in  all  other  provinces,  must  have  his  place ; 
yet  not  the  first;  his  humour  is  heartfelt,  exuberant, 
warm,  but  seldom  the  tenderest  or  most  subtle.  Swift 
inclines  more  to  simple  irony;  yet  he  had  genuine 
humour  too,  and  of  no  unloving  sort,  though  cased, 
like  Ben  Jonson's  in  a  most  caustic  and  bitter  rind. 
Sterne  follows  next;  our  last  specimen  of  humour, 
and,  with  all  his  faults,  our  best;  our  finest  if  not  our 
strongest;  for  Yorick  and  Corporal  Trim  and  Uncle 
Toby  have  yet  no  brother  but  in  Don  Quixote,  far 
as  he  lies  above  them.  Cervantes  is  indeed  the  purest 
of  all  humorists;  so  gentle  and  genial,  so  full,  yet  so 

[220] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

ethereal  is  his  humour,  and  in  such  accordance  with 
itself  and  his  whole  noble  nature." 

Could  we  then  prove  that  this  humour  which  in 
all  its  forms  is  the  very  staple  and  often  groundwork, 
fabric,  and  end  of  drama  is  the  concomitant,  if  not 
a  product  of  Sin,  then  its  effects  in  the  Literature  of 
this  World,  would  be  quite  absent  in  the  Literature 
of  any  theoretical  Heaven.  That  is  certainly  self- 
evident.  And  Shakespeare  and  the  firmament  of 
beauties  which  he  stands  for,  could  never  have  arisen, 
nor  indeed  could  now  exist  in  such  a  Heaven  as  Prof. 
Kedney  (a  good  authority)  thus  describes:  "the 
elements  which  must  constitute  the  heavenly  state 
may  be  summed  up  as  exhibiting  the  normal,  the 
ideal  relations  of  concrete  existence  and  are:  First, 
individual  perfection,  on  which  all  depends.  This 
has  for  its  motive-spring  religion,  the  personal  bond, 
the  responsive  and  spontaneous  love  of  the  individual 
soul  to  the  divine  love,  which  can  have  the  form  of 
sacrifice  no  more.  Second,  the  mirroring  in  the  inter- 
relations of  the  human  commonwealth,  the  harmony 
of  the  imminent  relations  of  the  Godhead,  uniting 
thus  the  members  of  the  same  into  one  organism,  of 
which  Christ  will  be  the  unifying  center.  Third, 
physical  glorification,  or  the  domination  over  nature, 
over  the  material  of  the  universe,  now  adapted  in  its 

[221] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

recuperated  state  to  the  activities,  the  desires,  we  may 
say  to  the  caprices,  of  the  purified  and  perfected 
souls,  now  to  be  trusted  in  sharing  the  divine  potence 
and  presence,  and  sure  never  to  misuse  them — en- 
dowed even  with  creative  powers  to  bring  forth  end- 
less combinations  and  new  beauty.  Fourth,  mental 
illumination — the  disappearance  of  all  that  is  con- 
fusing and  bewildering,  and  that  can  produce  error, 
the  possession  of  the  true  center  of  knowledge, 
whence  every  thing  in  the  scope  of  the  mental  visage 
is  harmoniously  related,  yet  which  vision  can  be  for- 
ever extended  toward  the  forever  receding  circum- 
ference— the  discovery  and  enjoyment  of  the  divine 
thoughts,  the  penetration  of  the  secrets  that  now  elude 
us,  the  wonders  of  the  spatially  little,  as  well  as  of 
the  spatially  great — the  extension  of  the  vision  beyond 
the  present  bounds  of  knowledge  into  the  manifold 
or  numberless  disclosures  of  the  stellar  universe. 
Fifth,  the  extension  of  the  sphere  of  fellowship  and 
love,  in  which  the  penetration  into  each  new  soul  and 
discovery  of  its  content  will  be  satisfying  from  its 
loving  perfection,  and  full  of  delight  from  its  unique- 
ness— in  which  sphere  new  ties  can  be  formed  guided 
by  special  sympathies;  for  there  can  be  no  monotony 
or  repetition  among  the  perfected  souls,  as  there  is 
none  among  the  souls  undergoing  purification." 

[222] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

Now  it  is  quite  inconceivable,  that  under  such 
conditions,  and  in  such  a  spiritual  and  moral  environ- 
ment, with  an  accordant  physical  nidus,  milieu,  or 
matrix,  plastic  enough  in  its  substance  to  express 
these  incandescent,  remote,  and  lofty  states — that 
any  temperament  or  mind  could  mature,  swayed  by 
the  faculties  of  observation,  which  would  take  pleas- 
ure in  Captain  Costigan,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Boffin,  the 
Antiquary  himself — Jonathan  Oldenbuck — with  the 
immortal  Edie  Ochiltree,  even  Saddletree,  Sir  An- 
thony Absolute,  Tommy  Lumpkin,  Uncle  Toby, 
Sam  Weller,  Rip-van- Winkle,  Don  Quixote,  Hudi- 
bras,  Pantagruel,  Bob  Acres,  Gulliver,  Tartuffe,  Tarn 
O'Shanter,  and  thousands  upon  thousands  of  char- 
acters, phases,  situations,  which  in  dramatic  litera- 
ture and  in  all  literature  which  has  dramatic  meanings, 
however  formed,  as  play,  story,  or  history,  present 
the  myriad  hued  picture  of  mirth,  incongruity,  mis- 
chief and  fun. 

Thus  reasoned  out,  in  an  instant  there  comes  troop- 
ing before  us,  the  fantastic  hosts  of  Shakespeare's 
comedy  and  those  of  all  other  comedians.  And 
they  seem  essentially  human,  distinctly  earthly,  irre- 
versibly of  this  world,  as  part  and  marrow  of  its 
indescribable  wrongness,  foolishness,  weakness,  mal- 
ice, inadvertence,  perversion,  and  struggle.  Note 

[223] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

them  how  they  enter.  Caliban,  the  sinister  distorted 
mask  of  malevolence,  pinched,  vituperative,  harlequin 
mischief,  brutish  spite,  and  mixed,  in  a  spirit  of 
boisterous  frolic  and  carnal  jollity,  with  the  drunken 
animal  jestings  of  Stephano  and  Trinculo ;  Speed  and 
Launce,  amiable  types  of  servants  wittily  contrasted 
as  capricious  merriment,  and  soliloquizing  humorous 
philosophy;  Falstaff  in  that  gay  deshabillement  of 
rustic  loquacity,  fun,  conceit,  intrigue,  and  vulgarity, 
with  Shallow,  Slender,  Evans,  Caius,  Bardolph, 
Pistol,  and  Nymn  and  the  indispensable  ladies,  and 
their  obedient  spouses;  the  Clown  in  Measure  for 
Measure,  a  grievous  and  inextricable  mixture  of  ribal- 
dry and  license;  the  Dromios  in  their  mad  frolic  of 
exchanged  persons  with  their  distracted  masters;  the 
mirthful  and  bewitched  Benedict  with  his  spry  wit 
and  failing  heart,  and  all  the  simple  comedy  of  Dog- 
berry and  Verges;  the  amorous  perversity  of  Love's 
Labor  Lost,  with  its  meandering  interludes  of  Arm- 
ado,  Dull,  and  Costard,  Moth,  and  Jaquenetta;  the 
crystalline  beauty  of  Midsummer  Night's  Dream, 
with  its  exquisite  burlesque  and  laughter,  its  sylvan 
odours  and  the  thousand  shimmering  lights  of  earth 
and  fairy  land,  a  web  of  human  peccadillos  spun  on 
a  thread  of  purest  poesy;  the  fair  human  comedy 
transcendently  beautiful  in  the  Merchant  of  Venice, 

[224] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

like  a  jewel  radiant  with  some  interior  fire  of  light 
borrowed  from  the  sun  itself,  sparkling  with  tears 
and  rimmed  with  smiles;  Jacques  and  Touchstone 
and  Audrey  so  soothing  and  rare  a  combination,  phil- 
osophy and  whimsicality  and  sluttishness,  gathered 
within  the  world  embracing  power  of  love  and  cour- 
age, and  where  the  agile  spirit  of  the  poet  follows 
nature  swifter  than  nature  outsteps  genius;  Petruchio 
and  Katherine  with  the  profuse  artistry  of  delicate 
design,  in  a  tempest  of  preposterous  temper  and 
deceit;  Sir  Toby  Belch,  Sir  Andrew  Ague-cheek, 
Maria,  Malvolio,  Clown,  moving  together  in  one  con- 
cise group  of  delicious  merriment,  where  the  unspent 
powers  of  mind  and  fancy  paint  the  very  pressure  and 
image  of  a  vanished  day;  the  sweet  and  mournful 
loveliness  of  The  Winter's  Tale,  that  like  a  fair  land- 
scape, burnished  with  the  sun,  begins  in  joy,  then  like 
the  same  picture  drenched  in  summer  mists  and  rains, 
breathes  an  etherial  sorrow,  to  close  a  setting  day  with 
rainbows,  through  the  skirts  of  passing  storm ;  all  these 
stand  in  the  catalogue  of  Shakespeare's  consummate 
drama  of  Comedy,  and  stand  there  because,  as  the 
Courtier  says  in  Alls  Well  That  Ends  Well,  "the 
web  of  our  life  is  of  a  mingled  yarn,  good  and  ill 
together:  our  virtues  would  be  proud,  if  our  faults 
[225] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

whipped  them  not;  and  our  crimes  would  despair  if 
they  were  not  cherished  by  our  virtues." 

It  thus  however  becomes  quite  clear  upon  reflec- 
tion, that  Carlyle  did  not  distinguish,  or  at  least  men- 
tion, the  fact  that  we  have  in  the  world,  Humour  as 
an  object,  and  also  as  a  quality  or  temperament.  As 
an  object,  Humour  in  all  its  phases,  passages,  and 
complications,  does  report  our  imperfect,  our  sinful 
state,  but  as  a  quality,  in  those  who  appreciate,  por- 
tray or  describe  it,  it  is  quite  correctly  and  attractively 
associated  with  a  loving,  a  sympathetic  heart.  That  so 
divine  a  trait  as  gentleness  and  love  should  be  gath- 
ered together  in  the  literary  effort  of  pleasingly  repro- 
ducing the  comedy  of  life,  even  its  most  trifling  juven- 
ility and  fantasy,  whims,  caprices,  and  contradictions, 
in  no  way  exempts  the  examples  of  Humour  from 
being  classed — in  our  wide  sense  of  the  word — as 
Sin,  Imperfection.  We  dwell  especially  upon  this 
point  as  proven,  for  dramatic  works  have  particularly 
their  popularity  amongst  us  by  reason  of  their 
Humour,  and  few  dramatic  amusements,  few  literary 
pastimes,  exceed  the  untarnished  jollity  and  whistling 
liveliness  of  Shakespeare  fun. 

Certainly  in  Shakespeare's  historical  plays,  in  his 
tragedies,  our  assumption  of  the  value  of  the  Sin 
Substance  of  Literature  need  provoke  no  protest. 

[226] 


SIN    IN     DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

Herein  lies  indeed  the  splendors  of  those  dusky  scenes, 
wherein  avarice  or  hate  or  envy  or  despair  or  murder- 
ous design  lift  their  haggard  faces  to  the  eyes  of  men, 
and  hasten  "along  the  doomed  highways  of  destruc- 
tion," where 

"witchcraft  celebrates 

Pale  Hecates,  offerings :  and  withered  murder, 
Alarmed  by  his  sentinel  the  wolf, 
Whose  howl's  his  watch,  thus  with  his  stealthy  pace, 
With  Tarquin's  ravishing  strides,  towards  his  design, 
Moves  like  a  ghost." 

From  Sin  in  such  plays,  apart  from  the  involved 
Ignorance  and  Misery,  comes  the  springs  of  action, 
the  motives  of  expression,  the  color  of  the  lines,  their 
imagery,  and  forms,  by  the  predestined  congruity  of 
thought  and  its  embodiment,  the  outlines,  features, 
play,  figure,  and  presentment  of  the  actors.  Dear 
Reader  to  whom  perchance  the  theory  that  these 
glorious  achievements  of  the  imaginative  quality  of 
the  human  mind  owe  their  creation  to  the  presence 
and  multivarious  influences  of  Sin,  even  in  a  measure 
to  the  responses  mental  and  emotional  of  the  Author, 
and  his  characters — you,  to  whom  such  a  theory 
seems  a  ludicrous  and  appalling  fancy,  contrive  to 
think  out  for  yourself  the  literary  aptitudes  of  a  sinless, 
a  perfect  state. 

[227] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Remember  too  that  in  such  a  state  our  minds  would 
doubtless  assume  an  exalted  purity  and  strength,  and 
all  the  fragrant  littlenesses  of  entertainment  which  we 
now  enjoy,  would  become  distasteful.  Contrive  cor- 
dially and  profoundly  to  think  out  such  a  place,  and 
is  it  not  extremely  obvious  that  Hamlet,  Macbeth, 
Othello,  Timon,  Richard,  John,  Leontes,  Shylock, 
Angelo,  Caesar,  Antony,  Cleopatra,  would  never  be 
thought  of  there?  Would  not  the  drama  be  ex- 
tinguished ?  Heaven  further,  as  a  perfect  state  means 
perfect  knowledge,  and  it  seems  more  than  likely  that 
Science  would  go  too,  though  with  that  we  are  not 
here  concerned.  We  shall  miss  nothing,  for  we  shall 
be  so  different,  but  that  enormous  section  of  Life 
which  we  call  Literature,  and  that  other  enormous 
section  which  we  call  Science,  will  be  done  with — 
just  now  a  rather  frightful  prospect. 

Extending  thus  the  skirt  of  this  conclusion  to  em- 
brace all  Drama,  it  is  surely  reasonable  to  believe 
that  that  earthliness,  that  conjunction  of  sense  with 
pleasure,  and  inclination  with  passion,  which  all 
theological  adage  and  dogma  holds  to  be  contrary 
to  perfect  purity,  in  short  our  sinful  state,  is  the  sub- 
stantive stuff  which  has  made  literature  dramatic. 
And  that  further,  however  stimulating  to  drama  is  the 
triumphant  conflict  of  good  with  evil,  still  the  com- 

[228] 


SIN    IN    DRAMA    AND    POETRY 

plete  suppression  of  the  latter  would  stultify  the  dra- 
matic poet,  and  reduce  the  possibilities  of  his  crea- 
tive act  to  eventless  and  vapid  dialogue. 

In  concluding  this  chapter  we  are  to  consider  the 
Sin  Substance  of  Literature  in  Poetry  and  it  may 
not  long  delay  us  as  it  does  not  so  weightily  enter 
the  tissue  of  Poetry,  as  does  Ignorance  and  Misery, 
and  far  less  than  in  Drama  does  it  effect  those  intel- 
lectual results  which  bestow  to  Drama  and  dramatic 
poetry  such  distinction  and  splendor. 

Drama  is  action,  and  poetry  outside  of  drama,  is 
contemplation,  description,  reflection,  and  pervasively, 
the  re-presentation  of  Nature  in  words,  wherein  of 
course  we  get  Nature  as  the  reaction  of  the  outward 
physical  world  and  the  nature  and  temperament  of 
the  poet.  But  Poetry  especially  consumes  its  creator 
in  his  submission  to  the  emotions,  and  they  are  the 
emotions  of  a  noble  cast,  love,  patriotism,  heroic 
rage;  it  deals  in  the  lyrics  of  devotion,  self-denial, 
epithilamiums,  limpid  apostrophes  to  the  past,  the 
great,  the  sorrows  of  life,  passionate  regrets,  the  invo- 
lution of  himself  in  the  processes  of  Nature,  as  the 
sunsets,  the  moonlight,  the  trees,  and  birds,  the  sea- 
sons, moral  postulation,  the  verbal  painting  of  scenes, 
of  character,  of  pictorial  narrative,  and  those  evoca- 

[229] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

live  appeals  which  stimulate  seriousness,  sadness,  and 
a  certain  beneficial  intellectual  elevation. 

It  is  true  that  Poetry  in  these  offices  finds  its  human 
standpoint  involved  and  expressively  tinted,  to  its  own 
advantage,  with  sin  and  misery  and  ignorance,  but  it 
is  the  latter  two  that  more  effectively  and  pervasively 
minister  to  its  needs,  and  offer  it  the  provocatives  of 
a  subtle  melancholy,  a  gentle  and  sometimes  a  fierce 
fever  of  scepticism,  the  puzzled  questionings  which 
like  the  chasmal  darkenings  and  purple  shadows  of 
a  closing  day  impart  to  Poetry  a  vague  glory  and 
attraction.  Of  this  we  shall  I  think  be  convinced  in 
another  chapter. 

And  just  here  at  any  rate  it  is  appropriate  to  call 
attention  that  the  three  great  epics  of  the  world  have 
had  their  immediate  cause  in  adventuresome  and 
ethnic  Sin,  in  the  formal  and  traditional  story  of  the 
enormous  event  that  put  this  singular  ingredient  in 
our  natures.  They  are  the  Iliad,  the  Inferno  of  the 
Divine  Comedy  of  Dante,  and  Milton's  Paradise 
Lost.  These  masterpieces  of  Literature  fundamen- 
tally, however  we  construe  the  meanings  of  their  sub- 
jects, have  to  do  with  a  sinning  world,  the  metaphor- 
ical or  metaphysical  tragedy  of  Sin,  and  the  religious 
symbolization  of  its  advent. 

[230] 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  SIN-SUBSTANCE  AND  THE  MISERY-SUBSTANCE 
OF  LITERATURE  IN  FICTION 

Dr.  Johnson  called  Madame  D'Arblay,  the  crea- 
tor of  Evelina  and  Cecilia,  a  "character-monger,"  by 
which  he  meant  to  describe  a  method  of  fiction  writ- 
ing, which  is  an  evolutionary  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  really  ideal  novel,  that  stage  which  suc- 
ceeds the  merely  narrative,  episodical,  and  catastro- 
phic style  of  Smollett  and  Fielding,  or  in  its  less 
humorous  and  more  sophistical  form  the  story  of 
Ainsworth  and  Sylvanus  Cobb. 

To  take  a  trait  of  character,  invest  it  with  some 
sort  of  appropriate  human  guise,  ventriloquize  it  with 
a  speaking  apparatus  whose  outpourings  shall  yield 
a  corroborative  endorsement  of  the  aforesaid  trait,  and 
mingle  it  upon  a  stage  of  relevant  action  with  other 
characters,  as  cleverly  designed  and  as  skillfully  exe- 
cuted, is  a  recipe  of  commendable  dignity.  It  has 
in  a  way  been  the  formula  by  which  Evelina  and 
Cecilia  and  some  of  the  less  advanced  and  less  men- 
tally profound  novels  of  Dickens  have  been  elabo- 
rated. Needless  to  say  with  humour  and  expression, 
descriptive  power,  and  an  edequate  dialogue  it  fur- 
nishes our  bookshelves  with  distinguished  occupants. 

[231] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Macaulay  has  thus  summarized  its  results  in  the 
novels  of  Madame  D'Arblay:  "about  every  one  of 
her  men  and  women  has  some  one  propensity  devel- 
oped to  a  morbid  degree.  In  Cecilia,  for  example, 
Mr.  Delille  never  opens  his  lips  without  some  allu- 
sion to  his  own  birth  and  station ;  or  Mr.  Briggs,  with- 
out some  allusion  to  the  hoarding  of  money;  or  Mr. 
Hobson,  without  betraying  the  self-indulgence  and 
self-importance  of  a  purse-proud  upstart;  or  Mr. 
Simpkins,  without  uttering  some  sneaking  remark  for 
the  purpose  of  currying  favor  with  his  customers; 
or  Mr.  Meadows,  without  expressing  apathy  and 
weariness  of  life;  or  Mr.  Albany,  without  declaiming 
about  the  vices  of  the  rich  and  the  misery  of  the  poor; 
or  Mrs.  Belfield,  without  some  indelicate  eulogy  on 
her  son;  or  Lady  Margaret,  without  indicating  jeal- 
ousy of  her  husband.  Morrice  is  all  skipping,  offici- 
ous impertinence,  Mr.  Gosport  all  sarcasm,  Lady 
Honoria  all  lively  prattle,  Miss  Larolles  all  silly  prat- 
tle. If  ever  Madame  D'Arblay  aimed  at  more,  we 
do  not  think  that  she  succeeded  well." 

Now  it  is  unnecessary,  in  view  of  the  wide  impli- 
cations given  in  the  previous  chapter  to  the  notion 
or  aspect  of  Sin — it  is  unnecessary  particularly  to 
demonstrate  that  in  the  preceding  inventory  of  the 
attributes  of  Madame  D'Arblay's  characters,  we  are 

[232] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

reviewing  aspects  of  Sin,  light,  venial,  entertaining, 
pleasantly,  for  literary  purposes,  exasperating  aspects, 
but  all  incomprehensible  and  inferentially  excluded 
from  Heaven,  or  the  societies  of  perfect  men. 

It  is  significant,  as  a  further  supporting  considera- 
tion in  this  thesis,  that  novel  writing  assumes  high 
prerogatives,  endues  itself  with  the  art  of  dramatic 
and  poetic  portraiture  as  its  exponents  follow  the 
psychological  intricacies  of  Sin,  bend  their  informing 
scrutiny  upon  the  subtleties  and  vulgarities  of  Sin, 
its  littlenesses  and  its  magnitude,  as  they  throw  into 
picturesque  groups  the  contrasted  vices,  and  virtues 
of  men  and  women,  and  crowd  their  pages  with  the 
forms  of  living  sinful  beings,  filling  up  the  relations 
between  them  with  illuminating  conversations,  in 
which,  from  sentence  to  sentence,  the  reader  discerns 
the  progress  of  temptation,  the  reticence  of  virtue,  the 
shades  of  criminal  intention,  or  is  startled  into  new 
interest  by  the  menaces  and  expletives  of  brutality 
and  lust. 

In  nearly  all  novels  the  matter  of  absorbing  inter- 
est is  the  way  in  which  a  man  and  a  woman  fall  in 
love,  and  over  small  or  great  obstructions  finally  con- 
summate a  union.  It  does  not  always  fall  out  so 
pleasantly,  and  the  novel  becomes  tragic  and  sad, 

[233] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

as  this  union  is  unachieved,  blurred  or  ruined.  Art 
and  experience  wonderfully  complicate  the  situation, 
and  in  the  ingenious  intricacies  of  bringing  to  bear 
misdirection  or  enmity,  upon  the  central  motive,  the 
tale  gathers  its  harvest  of  incident  and  most  of  its 
scenic  effectiveness,  certainly  its  dramatic  intensity. 

Herein  a  vast  capital  of  Sin  Substance  is  expended, 
in  creating  the  novel,  substance  which  grades  all  the 
way  from  the  malignant  and  repulsive  scheming  of 
Count  Fosco  in  the  Woman  in  White,  through  the 
subtle  mendacity  of  Mr.  Monckton  in  Cecilia,  to 
the  circumstantial  vulgarity  of  Mr.  Rosendale  in  the 
House  of  Mirth;  from  the  fierce  denunciatory  vio- 
lence of  Arbaces  against  Glaucus  in  the  Last  Days 
of  Pompeii,  through  the  mean  and  stealthy  vindic- 
tiveness  of  Mr.  Bradly  Headstone  in  Our  Mutual 
Friend,  to  the  scarcely  conspicuous  slurrs  of  Lady 
Catherine  de  Bourgh  in  Pride  and  Prejudice. 

Nor  is  this  necessary  love  between  man  and 
woman  always  so  adjusted  as  to  relieve  the  story 
from  the  more  sensational  agonies  of  illicitness  and 
immorality  and  when,  as  in  Tess  of  the  D'Urber- 
villes,  in  the  Manxman,  in  Mill  on  the  Floss,  in  Lady 
Rose's  Daughter,  The  Scarlet  Letter,  and  in  the 
multivarious  and  iridescent  tints  of  French  libidinous 
and  errant  humanity,  all  this  appears,  then  the  novel 

[234] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

seems  to  assume,  at  least  today,  a  rather  higher  liter- 
ary excellence  and  interest,  quite  absent  from  the 
homely  tales  of  Rory  O'More  and  Handy  Andy,  or 
the  galloping  pages  of  Mr.  Lever. 

And  this  is  reasonable.  Sin  is  indeed  literary  sub- 
stance of  the  most  illimitable  variety,  and  itself  pos- 
sesses the  most  urgent  or  delicate  shades  of  commis- 
sion or  intangible  suspicion.  The  sexual  relation  has 
passed  in  Society,  into  conventional  recognition  and 
regulation,  and  this  relation  has  revealed,  under  the 
fine  analysis  of  modern  study,  higher  co-ordination 
of  aptitudes,  and  faculties,  and  tastes,  between  the 
man  and  the  woman,  stimulating  inordinately  the 
mere  physical  basic  element  of  love,  and  thus  furnish- 
ing the  novelist  innumerable  gradations,  aspects, 
phases,  of  the  peculiar  sin  which  arises  from  the  in- 
fraction of  the  above  mentioned  convention. 

It  is  quite  needless  to  remark,  that  such  conditions 
can't  exist  in  Heaven,  and  are  likely  to  disappear 
in  any  millennial  condition  of  human  society  on  this 
earth.  For  it  must  be  again  brought  to  the  reader's 
notice,  that  the  literary  interest  to  us  all  of  this  invol- 
ution of  Sin,  is  because  we  are  all  sinners  potentially, 
and  if,  by  any  transposition  or  transfiguration  of  our 
parts  we  get  to  be  saints,  the  keenest  literary  enjoy- 
ments, in  these  ways,  will  be  cancelled. 

[235] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

The  two  greatest  novels  in  English  are  Vanity 
Fair  of  Thackeray,  and  Jane  Eyre  of  Charlotte 
Bronte,  in  French  Balzac's  Pere  Goriot,  and  Dau- 
det's  Fromont  jeune  et  Risler  aine,  Consuelo  is  a 
masonic  rhapsody — in  German  there  are  no  great 
novels ;  Freytag's  Sollen  und  Haben,  and  Auerbach's 
Auf  der  Hb'he  can  hardly  be  considered  great ;  some- 
thing insupportably  bourgeoise  seems  to  cling  to  all 
German  fiction;  the  Sin  substance  is  not  well  man- 
aged, Hauptman,  Suderman,  Wasserman — the  new 
men — excepted. 

Now  in  the  English  and  French  novels  I  have  in- 
stanced as  splendid,  if  not  the  greatest,  examples  of 
their  respective  fiction,  we  have  an  admixture  of  that 
fascinating  Sin  Substance  we  have  been  regarding 
as  essential  to  literary  creation,  diminishing,  to  be 
sure,  in  Jane  Eyre  to  an  atmosphere  of  temptation, — 
and  how  acutely  and  wonderfully  impressed  upon 
us! — to  a  possible  calamity,  only  avoided  by  con- 
vulsing concentration  of  self-command  and  illuminat- 
ing thought.  And  what  would  these  great  books 
be  without  the  terrors  and  brilliancy  of  Sin?  They 
might  remain  interesting,  because  they  would  still 
have  some  sort  of  characterization  and  ample  spaces 
for  description  of  scenery.  But  they  would  not  be 

[236] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

the  books  they  are.  They  would  not  touch  our 
hearts. 

It  is  pretty  generally  recognized  that  literary  taste 
has  changed  since  the  first  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  that  we  have  small  patience  with  the  dia- 
logue of  Madame  D'Arblay,  which  according  to 
credible  accounts  delighted  Burke,  a  man  by  whom 
most  men  of  today  are  of  insufferably  small  stature, 
that  Scott  is  good  enough  for  the  nursery  but  not  for 
the  modern  "grown-ups."  We  have  grown  psycho- 
logical— note  the  meandering  and  exhaustive  analy- 
ses of  Miss  Sinclair  in  her  remarkable  production 
"The  Divine  Fire" — and  we  have  become  attached 
to  literary  methods,  that  like  sub-marine  diving  and 
deep-sea  dredging  get  below  the  surface  currents  of 
things,  bringing  to  our  gaze  with  realistic  precision 
things  strange  and  rare,  not  infrequently  very  appall- 
ing. 

Today  the  treatment  of  subjective  events  rather 
than  of  objective  events  is  preferred,  to  watch  the 
inclination  of  the  soul,  its  struggles  and  torments, 
affinities  and  repulsions,  its  ecstacy,  while,  helping 
the  evolution  of  its  interior  tumults,  a  few  dramatic 
situations,  and  much  irrefragable  scenery,  interiors 
and  exteriors,  is  provided.  The  narrative  of  adven- 
ture has  become  psychologic  or,  I  might  say,  physio- 

[237] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

logical-psychologic.  We  would  prefer  the  Sea  Wolf 
of  Jack  London  and  the  Kim  of  Kipling  and  the 
wood  scenery  of  Edward  Stuart  White  to  all  of 
Cooper  or  G.  P.  R.  James  or  perhaps  even  Dumas. 
These  moderns  tell  their  story  with  compelling  real- 
ism, they  get  to  the  marrow  of  what  they  tell,  and 
they  bring  you  too  with  them;  they  breed,  by  the 
power  of  words,  the  sensation  he  would  feel,  who 
reads  them,  if  he  were  present  in  the  places  and  at 
the  temperatures  they  describe.  The  old  style  of 
telling  is  superficial,  because  it  is  commonplace  or 
eloquent,  and  never  gets  the  psychologic  value  out 
of  words  that  is  in  them.  The  old  writers  made  cop- 
perplates the  new  ones  photographs. 

Well  this  sudden  penetration  of  diction  has  given 
Sin  Substance  in  literature  a  new  value  and  taken 
in  conjunction  with  our  awakened  psychologic  sense 
makes  our  novels  contracted  in  figures,  but  most  in- 
tense in  evolution,  in  emotional  growth,  in  supple 
paragraphs  picturing  a  man's  descent  into  Sin  or  his 
happy  extrication  from  it.  One  of  the  recent  death- 
less books  (I  mean  within  the  half  century)  is  Har- 
rison's The  Damnation  of  Theron  Ware.  Here  is 
the  Sin  Substance  used  with  the  most  remarkable 
sincerity  and  skill.  But  how  immensely  heightened 
by  the  selection  and  the  emphasis  of  words.  Take 

[238] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

again  the  French  part  of  David  Grieve — the  best 
which  Mrs.  Humphrey  Ward  has  ever  written — 
how  insinuating  and  delicious  is  the  French  woman 
and  reasonable  the  declension  of  David!  It  is  Sin 
and  it  is  the  pearl  of  the  book. 

We  have  not  hesitated  in  the  previous  chapter  to 
claim  that  the  Sin  Substance  means  more  than  the 
acrid,  horrid,  or  defiling  crimes  and  vices;  it  also 
must  include,  for  the  verity  of  this  thesis,  the  imper- 
fections of  humanity,  his  frailities,  foibles,  weaknesses, 
small  practices  and  devious  guiles.  Nor  can  the 
claim  be  forcibly  ejected  either  by  reason,  observa- 
tion, or  philosophy.  If  these  cracks  and  ambiguities 
in  our  nature  are  not  of  the  nature  of  Sin,  what  are 
they? 

At  this  point  the  older  writers  come  by  their  due, 
and  Scott,  Trollope,  Dickens  and  Thackeray  carry 
us  away  with  laughter  till  the  venerable  joy  they  give 
us  kills  all  the  memory  of  the  Howells,  Jameses, 
Whartons,  Besants,  Churchills,  Wisters,  Tarking- 
tons,  Mitchells,  Johnsons,  Doyles,  Caines,  Hopes, 
Zangwills,  Jewetts,  Harrises,  Smiths,  Glasgows,  and 
the  long  line  of  amiable  and  skillful  story  tellers  who 
so  profusely  depict  the  whole  panorama  of  creation 
and  living  for  us.  And  let  it  be  here  remembered 
that  this  Sin  Substance  of  Literature  we  are  after 

[239] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

embraces  mental  and  physical  irregularities  as  well  as 
all  moral  derelictions. 

The  irregularities  and  malformations,  distortions 
of  the  body  and  the  face,  the  lapses,  vacuity,  imbecil- 
ity, and  madness  of  the  mind  are  all  implied  in  the 
Sin  Substance  of  Literature,  and  their  wide  use  in 
the  pages  of  the  novelist  is  just  and  convincing  evi- 
dence of  the  favorable  elements  the  world  offers  for 
the  growth,  development  and  fruitage  of  this  sort  of 
literature,  and  certainly  none  else  ministers  so  acutely 
to  pleasure.  Here  enter  Silas  Weg  and  Venus  in 
our  Mutual  Friend,  one  lame  in  his  legs  and  the  other 
in  his  mind,  the  three  curates — Malone,  Donne,  and 
Sweeting — in  Shirley,  all  equally  afflicted  with  pal- 
tryness  and  inefficiency,  the  terrible  Guine  Plaine 
in  The  Man  Who  Laughs  of  Victor  Hugo,  the 
Hunchback  of  Notre  Dame,  the  strange  and  awful 
figure  of  Wolf  Arsen  in  the  Sea  Wolf,  a  man  sinful 
by  reason  of  an  original  atrophy  of  moral  conscious- 
ness, the  sinister  errors  of  Quilp,  and  the  erotic  amen- 
ities of  Mr.  Swiveller. 

It  is  again  insisted  here,  as  it  was  in  the  examina- 
tion of  the  influence  of  Sin  in  Drama,  that  defects, 
imperfections,  twists,  awryness,  insufficiencies,  are  of 
the  nature  of  Sin,  at  least  they  are  eliminated  in  any 
hypothetical  condition  of  bliss  and  perfection.  And 

[240] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

the  humorists  of  fiction  find  a  reflex  of  these  short- 
comings in  the  faces,  features,  behavior,  speech,  and 
actions  of  their  characters,  a  reflex  instantly  inconceiv- 
able in  more  heavenly  conditions  of  living,  where 
we  become  angelic,  beautiful,  symmetrical,  and 
divinely  ship-shape. 

And  while  we  thus  generally  collocate  these 
peculiarities  under  the  name  of  Sin  as  a  collective  ex- 
pression for  a  lack  of  conformity  to  an  ideal  state 
they  furnish  an  amazing  number  of  whimsical  comi- 
calities to  the  observant  gleaner  of  human  foibles. 
What  a  maze  of  ludicrous  and  mirth  making  people 
fill  the  pages  of  Boz!  Such  curious  abortive  types, 
with  their  jocular  and  also  evil  idiosyncracies,  their 
flagrant  habits,  their  stubby  and  twisted  taste,  car- 
icatures and  distorted  exaggerated  human  objects, 
but  doubtless  copies  too. 

Here  is  Mr.  Wackford  Squeers  for  instance,  with 
his  one  eye,  "greenish  grey  and  in  shape  resembling 
the  fan  light  of  a  street  door,"  and  "the  blank  side  of 
his  face  much  wrinkled  and  puckered  up;"  Mr. 
Noggs  with  his  goggle  eyes,  "wherof  one  was  a 
fixture,"  and  Crummies  and  Pyke  and  Pluck,  Sir 
Mulberry  Hawk  and  Lord  Frederick  Verisopht,  not 
forgetting  the  old  gentleman  who  makes  love  to  Mrs. 
Nickelby  over  the  garden  wall,  and  Mr.  Arthur 

[241] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Gride  "the  whole  expression  of  whose  face  was  con- 
centrated in  a  wrinkled  leer,  compounded  of  cun- 
ning lecherousness,  slyness  and  avarice."  This  in  one 
book!  But  think  of  Miss  Mb'ucher,  and  Uriah 
Heep,  and  Mrs.  Pipchin,  Skettles  and  Toots,  Jack 
Bunsby  and  Captain  Cuttle. 

Far  back  in  the  sixteenth  century  we  are  told  of  the 
so-called  "picaresque"  story  which  Jusserand  de- 
scribes in  his  "English  Novel  in  the  Times  of  Shakes- 
peare;" he  says  "the  great  time  for  the  rascal,  the 
rogue,  the  knave,  for  all  those  persons  of  no  particu- 
lar class  whom  adventures  had  left  poor  and  by  no 
means  peaceable,  for  the  picaro  in  all  his  varieties, 
was  the  sixteenth  century.  A  whole  literature  was 
devoted  to  describing  the  fortunes  of  these  strange 
persons :  Spain  gave  it  its  name  of  picaresque  and 
spread  it  abroad,  but  did  not  altogether  invent  it. 
*  *  *  *  the  picaro  holds  a  place  in  literature  which 
is  peculiarly  his  own.  Faithless,  shameless,  if  not 
joyless,  the  plaything  of  fortune,  by  turn  valet,  gen- 
tleman, beggar,  courtier,  thief,  we  follow  him  into 
all  societies.  From  hovel  to  palace  he  goes  first, 
opens  the  door,  and  shows  us  the  characters.  There 
is  no  plot  more  simple  or  flexible,  none  that  lends  itself 
better  to  the  study  of  manners  or  abuses,  of  social 
eccentricities.  The  only  defect  is  that,  in  order  to 

[242] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

abandon  himself  with  necessary  good  will  to  the 
caprices  of  Fate,  and  in  order  to  be  able  to  penetrate 
everywhere,  the  hero  has  necessarily  little  conscience 
and  still  less  heart ;  hence  the  barrenness  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  picaresque  romances,  and  the  weak  role, 
entirely  incidental,  reserved  in  these  works  for  senti- 
ment." 

Gil  Bias  was  itself  a  picaresque  story  and  why 
are  not  the  adventures  of  Tom  Jones,  Peregrine 
Pickle,  Roderick  Random,  even  Don  Quixote  picar- 
esque stories  too?  We  have  in  these  tales  the  itin- 
erant exploits  and  adventures  of  their  several  heroes, 
relieved  in  each  case  by  the  proper  assumption  of  the 
partial  incorporation  in  the  hero,  of  a  little  decency, 
not  too  much,  by  the  way,  for  the  liberal  customs  of 
the  day.  Tom  Jones  wanders  considerably  and  falls 
in  adventures  which  are  certainly  not  constructed 
upon  the  strictest  lines  of  decorum.  Of  course  char- 
acters are  added  which  have  the  imprint  of  contem- 
poraneous truthfulness,  and  some  attempt,  not  alto- 
gether factitious,  is  made  to  give  them  individuality. 

There  is  the  impossible,  swearing,  coarse,  Squire 
Western,  with  a  sort  of  sub-acid  flavor  of  candor  and 
vituperative  affection,  the  judicious  and  judicial  All- 
worthy,  the  lecturing  Miss  Western,  the  implacable 
and  religious  (after  a  fashion)  Mr.  Thwackum,  and 

[243] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

the  cold  blooded  and  disputatious  Square,  the  mean- 
spirited  Blifil,  and  the  melting  and  virtuous  Sophia, 
with  a  jumble  of  diverting  supernumeraries.  In  Per- 
egrine the  device  of  amusing  adventures  is  even  more 
conspicuously  used,  and  the  tale,  in  its  humor,  de- 
rives a  really  preposterous  jollity  from  the  ludicrous 
picture  of  the  nautical  Trunnion  and  his  household, 
while  Pickle's  adventures  with  his  ridiculous  com- 
panions in  France,  form  a  picture  of  rude  but  unmis- 
takable mirth. 

But  its  comedy  certainly  relies  upon  the  use  of  inci- 
dents which,  however,  exactly  categorized,  belong 
to  the  vulgar,  the  indecent,  the  undecorous  and  hence 
may  be,  under  the  extended  limits  of  its  implications 
here  assumed,  referred  to  the  subject  matter  of 
Sin.  Indeed  the  preparation  of  these  works  have  not 
insensibly  been  influenced  by  that  sort  of  philosophy 
which  is  expressed  in  the  reflections  of  Cadwallader 
in  Peregrine  Pickle,  "I  have  travelled  over  the  great- 
est part  of  Europe,  as  a  beggar,  pilgrim,  priest, 
soldier,  gamester,  and  quack;  and  felt  the  extremes 
of  indigence  and  opulence,  with  the  inclemency  of 
weather  in  all  its  vicissitudes.  I  have  learned  that  the 
characters  of  mankind  are  everywhere  the  same :  that 
common  sense  and  honesty  bear  an  infinitely  small 

[244] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

proportion  to  folly  and  vice ;  and  that  life  is  at  best  a 
paltry  province." 

While  a  great  deal  of  Peregrine  Pickle  contributes 
to  the  merriment  of  the  careless  reader,  it  is  not  con- 
ceived— and  it  is  just  to  admit  that  it  displays  much 
invention  and  has  the  interest  of  a  contemporaneous 
study  from  the  early  eighteenth  century — upon  the 
tenderest  lines  of  human  virtue.  Especially  does  the 
adventures  of  A  Lady  of  Quality,  enter  within  the 
precincts  of  Sin,  though  the  treatment  possesses  that 
rollicking  audacity  and  verve  that  robs  it  of  its  weary- 
ing profligacy.  Roderick  Random,  supposed  to  be 
the  partial  autobiography  of  its  author,  contains  the 
usual  thing,  the  escapades  of  youth,  the  fraility  of 
women,  the  feints  of  humbug,  the  shifts  of  penury 
and  debauched  indulgence,  the  arts  of  fortune  hunt- 
ing rakes,  and  tumbled,  frowsy,  and  despairing 
maids. 

In  "The  Adventures  of  Ferdinand  Fathom"  still 
deeper  depths  of  human  depravity  are  painted,  and 
the  tired  reader  may  be  permitted  to  rejoice  that  in 
the  varied  retinue  depicted  today  in  the  novel,  of 
Misery  and  Sin,  he  is  not  expected  to  peruse  pages 
loaded  with  stifling  filth  and  forlorn  imposture,  nor 
read  the  hero's  addresses  to  his  goddess,  couched  in 
language  like  that  which  Roderick  Random  uses  to 

[245] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

the  fair  Narcissa:  "My  condition  is  insupportable! 
I  am  distracted  with  passion!  Why  are  you  so  ex- 
quisitely fair?  Why  are  you  so  enchantingly  good? 
Why  has  nature  dignified  you  with  charms  so  much 
above  the  standard  of  women?  and  wretch  that  I 
am  how  dares  my  unworthiness  aspire  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  such  perfection?" 

And  yet  this  is  Literature,  not  destitute  either  of 
many  meritorious  emblems  of  her  sacred  muse. 
There  is  style  and  treatment  and  the  subject  matter 
has  interest  and  excites  the  reader's  laughter  even 
if  it  does  not  qualify  altogether  to  the  refinement  of 
his  taste,  at  least  the  reader  of  today,  for  undoubtedly 
it  met  the  standards  of  a  time  when  coarse  reference 
to  the  necessitous  physiology  of  nature  was  applauded 
and  enjoyed,  and  when  the  habits  of  life  were 
directed  by  lust,  brutal  tastes,  and  the  stupid  sycho- 
phancy  of  wits  and  parasites  to  the  vanity  and  prig- 
gishness  of  station. 

In  Mr.  Howell's  very  readable  Heroines  of  Fic- 
tion, (in  which  it  seems  to  us,  injustice  is  done  to 
Walter  Scott,  and  to  Thackeray,  and  to  Dickens, 
through  Mr.  Howell's  constitutional  quakeristic 
taste,  and  the  veiled  malevolence  of  a  literary  pre- 
ciosity), we  are  told  that  "it  is  not  going  too  far  to 
say  that  the  nineteenth  century  English  novel,  as  we 

[246] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

understand  it  now,  with  its  admirable  limitations, 
was  invented  by  Oliver  Goldsmith."  It  is  certainly 
a  very  grateful  relief  to  escape  from  the  monotonous 
relation  of  blackguards  and  pimps,  the  inordinate 
vulgarity  of  passionate  brutes,  and  simpering  servants, 
panders  and  parasites  to  pages  like  those  of  The 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  refined  with  feeling,  and  gently 
pathetic  with  the  unmistakable  sorrows  of  life,  less 
jeeringly  narrated  than  in  Fielding  and  Smollett.  We 
then  encounter  that  more  modernized  form  of  the 
novel  in  which  the  subject-matter  is  quite  generally 
Misery  of  some  sort — usually  of  the  heart — under 
whose  dispensation  character  strengthens  or  deter- 
iorates. Howells  in  touching  in  his  ubiquitous  way 
this  beautiful  story,  says  most  adroitly:  Goldsmith 
"does  not  portray  the  incidents  or  characters  which 
Richardson  studies  with  a  pious  abhorrence,  or  Field- 
ing with  a  blackguardly  sympathy.  His  realism  stops 
short  of  the  facts  which  may  appall  or  which  may 
defile  the  fancy.  It  contents  itself  with  the  gentle 
domestic  situation  of  the  story,  and  its  change  from 
happiness  to  misery,  through  chances  none  the  less 
probable  because  they  are  operated  by  the  author 
so  much  more  obviously  than  they  would  be  now  by 
an  author  of  infinitely  less  inspiration." 

Goldsmith,  at  any  rate,  began  the  introduction — 

[247] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

premeditated  by  Richardson — of  the  woes  of  life, 
the  nervous  strains,  the  mental  wearinesses,  the  torture 
of  the  heart,  and  he  made  them  a  thousand  times 
more  real  than  the  jocular  treatment  and  unabashed 
familiarity  and  shameless  apathy  of  his  predecessors 
in  fiction  had  ever  done.  Goldsmith  began  that  em- 
ployment of  the  subject  matter  of  Misery,  which  has 
since,  as  we  believe  (See  Chapter  IV)  characterized 
Fiction,  in  so  far  as  Fiction  reflects  the  reality  of  Life. 
Frances  Burney  has  pictured  youth  and  innocence 
and  sensibility  making  its  perilous  and  embarrassed 
way  amid  temptations,  vulgarity  and  impudence,  and 
while  the  danger  reaches  no  great  intensity,  there  is 
plenty  of  uneasiness,  inconvenience,  tormenting  dis- 
quietude and  indirection.  As  we  have  insisted,  the 
Sin  substance  of  literature  declines  from  tragedy  to 
comedy,  the  Ignorance  substance  from  despair  and 
mystery  to  a  pleasurable  dalliance  with  doubt  and 
imaginative  invention,  so  does  the  Misery  substance 
in  fiction  furnish  its  readers  with  grief  or  with  per- 
plexity. The  novel  in  the  hand  of  Frances  Burney, 
Marie  Edgworth,  and  Jane  Austen  parted  with  its 
former  abominable  viciousness,  or  outspoken  ribal- 
dry and  coarseness  and  as  Mr.  Howells  points  out 
became  "forever  dedicated  to  decency;  as  women 
they  were  faithful  to  their  charge  of  the  chaste  mind ; 

[248] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

and  as  artists  they  taught  the  reading  world  to  be  in 
love  with  the  sort  of  heroines  who  knew  how  not 
only  to  win  the  wandering  hearts  of  men  but  to  keep 
their  homes  pure  and  inviolable." 

But  the  literary  interest  deepens  as  it  rises  to 
higher  levels  of  feeling  and  conduct,  because  of  the 
more  richly  elaborated  details  of  pain,  of  uncertainty, 
of  aching  struggle,  of  misunderstanding,  of  the  play 
of  conflicting  emotions,  and  the  realism  of  corroding 
passions,  in  short  as  the  categories  of  Misery  are  more 
deeply  studied,  and  the  store  houses  of  its  garnered 
terrors  are  more  and  more  explicitly  and  truthfully 
depicted — absorbing  to  the  last  tension  of  interest 
our  gaze  and  sympathy  in  the  dramatic  story  of  trial, 
and  disappointment,  the  agonies  of  conscience,  and 
the  dull  hideousness  of  repining  envy  and  hatred — 
the  novel  rises  in  aesthetic  and  artistic  merit.  And 
this  absorption,  this  entrance  into  the  tissues  of  the 
story  of  our  own  feelings,  is  intense  as  the  story  is 
real,  not  empty,  grandiose,  and  frescoed  with  redun- 
dant sentimentality;  as  the  Misery  appeals  to  us  be- 
cause we  recognize  and  know  it. 

In  Jane  Austen,  who,  it  is  now  satisfactorily 
proven,  was  a  very  great  artist  indeed,  and  who  made 
her  admirable  works — Howells  calls  them  all  master- 
pieces— by  the  unaided  skill,  penetration  and  sobri- 

[249] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ety  of  a  literary  genius  which  was  half  correct  atten- 
tion to  facts,  and  half  exquisite  power  of  expression 
— in  Jane  Austen,  Misery  displays  its  lean  and 
shrunken  visage,  but  is  always  amiably  overcome, 
for  the  contentment  of  the  reader,  and  is  never  hope- 
lessly misshapen,  haggard  and  haunting. 

It  is  there,  though,  all  the  same,  and  its  being  there 
is  the  raison  d'etre  of  the  novel  itself.  Howells  is 
clearly  entranced  with  her,  but  yet  apparently  at  the 
behest  of  a  good  literary  taste.  He  says  "the  wonder 
of  any  beautiful  thing  is  that  it  is  beautiful  in  so  many 
ways;  and  her  fiction  is  as  admirable  for  its  lovely 
humour,  its  delicate  satire,  its  good  sense,  its  kind- 
ness, its  truth  to  nature,  as  for  its  form.  There  is 
nothing  hurried  or  huddled  in  it,  nothing  confused  or 
obscure,  nothing  excessive  or  inordinate." 

Of  course  Howells  is  controlled  by  the  nicest  of 
modern  abstemiousness  from  tolerance  of  literary  in- 
discretions, however  pleasing.  He  certainly  pitches 
into — "pitches"  is  too  vigorous  a  word  to  describe 
his  Minos-Like  certainty  of  disparagement — Walter 
Scott  when  he  says,  "in  prose,  at  least  the  prose  of 
his  novels,  he  was  shapeless,  tautological,  heavy, 
infirm,  wandering,  melodramatic  and  over  literary." 
He  does  not  like  Scott's  romantic  experiments  and 
generally  when  he  (Scott)  gets  away  from  Scotland, 

[250] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

its  laddies,  lassies,  lairds,  and  beggars,  he  finds  him 
tiresome.  We  are  not  here  involved  in  criticism.  It 
is  clear  that  Scott  made  fiction  out  of  the  misery- 
substance  of  life — as  every  one  must — and  his  best 
work — Howells  concurring — is  in  The  Bride  of 
Lammermoor  and  The  Heart  of  Midlothian,  where 
human  sorrow  touches  its  deeper  stress  of  pain,  and 
the  chords  of  the  heart  are  most  poignantly  assailed 
with  violence. 

Dickens  is  not  artful  enough  for  Mr.  Howells,  and 
his  fun  and  sometimes  his  tragedy  seem  to  him  unreal, 
artificial,  stagey,  and  reprehensible.  Well!  there  is 
Misery  in  Dickens — it  is  the  substance  of  all  that 
will  survive  the  deterioration  and  oblivion  of  time. 

The  Pickwick  Papers  will  continue  to  enliven  life 
and  add  its  mirthful  charm  and  frolicsome  nonsense 
to  the  sum  of  literary  joys — in  spite  of  Mr.  Howells' 
thumb-in-his-vest  polite  and  exigent  reserve  concern- 
ing its  excellence — for  long  years  perhaps,  but  it  can- 
not be  quite  so  surely  accounted  literature  as  those 
stories  of  Dickens  which  move  the  heart  with  thrill- 
ing responses  of  sympathy;  as  Great  Expectations 
or  David  Copperfield,  or  The  Tale  of  Two  Cities; 
in  fine  as  those  stories  in  which  misery  is  so  much  of 
their  subject  matter. 

If  we  come  to  Hawthorne,  in  quest  of  the  sub- 

[251] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

stance  of  his  wonderful  fiction,  "which,"  as  Howells 
most  adequately  says,  "owed  nothing  to  English 
models  and  differed  from  English  fiction  in  nothing 
so  much  as  its  greater  refinement,  its  subtler  beauty, 
and  its  delicate  perfection  of  form,"  if  we  look  for 
the  materials  his  potent  and  magical  art  converted 
into  a  kind  of  remote  and  ideal  literature,  it  is  the 
Misery  of  Life,  the  wealth  and  burden  of  human 
sorrow.  Hawthorne  seems  to  us  hardly  so  typical — 
flattering  as  that  view  is — of  America  as  typical  of  a 
peculiar  temperament,  an  interior  imaginative  power, 
and  a  psychological  curiosity  which  revealed  itself 
in  the  most  difficult  tasks  of  romantic  composition. 

But  in  the  "Scarlet  Letter" — if  we  must  follow 
Mr.  Howells'  preferences — we  reach  the  deepest 
levels  of  human  suffering,  we  stand  in  the  midst  of  an 
almost  unbearable  agony,  the  more  insufferable,  be- 
cause those  who  carry  it  are  themselves  silent 
and  patient,  and  noble,  because  they  intensify 
their  own  pain — and  ours — by  the  elemental 
keenness  of  their  perception  of  Sin,  and  their  essential 
and  insuperable  sensitiveness  to  a  wrong  in  which 
they  participate,  through  the  inexorable  tyranny  of 
nature.  And  again  in  the  Blithdale  Romance — still 
clinging  to  the  ineffable  guidance  of  our  literary  pre- 
ceptor— what  tormenting  sorrow!  How  endless 

[252] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

seems  the  bitterness  of  Zanobia's  repulse  who  be- 
comes "more  and  more  compassed  about  by  the  trag- 
ical shadows  which  the  effulgence  of  her  own  pas- 
sion costs,  till  her  despair  ends  with  the  defeat  of  her 
last  vanity  in  the  ugliness  of  her  self-sought  death." 

And  in  the  novels  of  Thackeray — is  there  not 
Misery  when  he  attains  the  most  impressive  and 
inimitable  results?  Does  his  mastery  of  human 
nature,  his  knowledge  of  its  springs  of  action,  his 
intuition — often  marred  in  its  rendition  we  are  told 
by  Howells — of  the  mixed  motives  and  interlaced 
and  warring  tendencies  hither  and  thither  in  human 
affections — does  all  this  subserve  any  better  purpose 
than  to  realize  in  Fiction,  the  Misery  of  Life  ? 

We  have  accentuated  the  omnipresent  use  of 
misery — substance  in  Fiction.  It  is  not  that  this  use 
dispossesses  the  use  of  the  Sin-substance  as  well;  in- 
deed the  misery  is  quite  generally  the  outcome,  the 
inflexible  moral  consequence  of  the  sin.  But  in  its 
literary  effectiveness  the  misery  seems  to  be  the  ele- 
ment emphasized,  at  least  brought  home  most  acutely 
to  the  feelings  of  the  reader,  and  it  is  a  mark  of  the 
modern  novel  that  this  extraordinary  skill  moves  him 
most  profoundly,  so  profoundly  that  the  novelist  is 
forced  to  relieve  his  depressed  mind  by  supplying 
some  escape  from  the  insupportable  pressure  of  lacer- 

[253] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ated  sympathies  and  as  Howells  says  "to  kill  people 
or  to  marry  them  is  to  beg  the  question ;  but  into  some 
corner  the  novelist  is  commonly  driven  who  deals 
with  this  problem.  It  is  only  life  that  can  deal  master- 
fully with  problems,  and  life  does  not  solve  them  by 
referring  them  to  another  life  or  by  stifling  them  with 
happiness,"  and  when  the  author  so  solves  the  prob- 
lem, and  takes  his  unendurable  strain  off  the  reader, 
then  the  literary  value  of  his  production  ceases,  and 
the  book  ends. 

In  Thackeray  we  meet  one  of  the  greatest  of  fiction 
makers,  gifted  with  the  most  inexpugnable  powers  of 
entertainment,  and  certainly  capable  of  dramatic 
intensity  with  a  hand  at  character  drawing  almost 
unmatched.  In  Vanity  Fair  he  seems  the  greatest, 
though  Howells,  bothered  with  scruples  about  work- 
manship, thinks  this  wonderful  work  inferior  to  The 
Newcombs  and  Pendennis,  and  his  bowels  of  com- 
passion are  not  moved  to  regard  it  as  unique.  It  is 
to  us  a  marvelous  tale. 

Herein  we  have  depicted  for  our  wonderment  and 
remembrance  a  woman  consummately  formed  for  the 
enjoyment  of  social  ambition,  and  so  artfully  com- 
posed that  she  is  neither  very  bad  nor  devoid  of  the 
quasi  instincts  of  goodness,  a  creature  rebellious  at 
the  accidents  of  her  dependent  life,  and  harboring 

[254] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

a  resentful  contempt  for  the  mental  inferiority  of 
those  whom  the  social  tradition  has  placed  above  her, 
not  susceptible  of  love  in  any  sense  that  would  carry 
her  over  the  brink  of  conventional  propriety,  and  yet 
so  adulterated  with  pride  and  the  fancy  of  conquest 
that  she  involves  herself  in  a  tormenting  train  of 
duplicities  and  miseries  and  sinks  from  step  to  step 
in  a  gradual  renunciation  of  respectability.  This  is 
literature,  as  to  the  novel,  and  it  is  a  study  of  the 
ingrained  wretchedness  of  life,  at  any  rate  those 
phases  of  it  which  prompt  writers  to  write,  and  read- 
ers to  buy  the  products  of  their  creative  industry. 

We  have  never  quite  forgotten  the  fascination  of 
Jane  Eyre,  and  we  recur  to  it  with  a  feeling  that  it 
is  greater  than  even  Middle  March  or  Romola, 
greater  than  Charles  Reade  or  William  Black  or 
Thomas  Hardy.  The  suffering,  which  makes  of  it 
Literature,  is  intense,  almost  insupportable,  and  its 
growth,  its  slow  coming  to  age,  from  the  sad  moments 
when  the  bewildered  lonely  little  girl  is  bullied  by 
that  infernal  brat  of  a  boy-scoundrel  John  Reed, 
through  the  distressful  days  at  Lowood,  to  those 
strange  experiences  at  Thornfield  Hall,  where  the 
nervous  imaginative  girl,  grown  up  into  an  aspiring 
affectionate  and  dreaming  woman,  falls  in  love  with 
Rochester,  and,  when  he  is  surrounded  by  the  fine 

[255] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ladies  and  swells  from  London,  looks  at  him  with  "a 
precious,  yet  poignant  pleasure;  pure  gold  with  a 
steely  point  of  agony;  a  pleasure  like  what  the  thirst 
perishing  man  might  feel  who  knows  the  well  to 
which  he  has  crept  is  poisoned,  yet  stoops  and  drinks 
divine  draughts  nevertheless,"  all  is  drawn  with  a 
most  enthralling  and  heart  stirring  power. 

And  the  catastrophe,  the  awful  disclosure  of 
Rochester's  marriage,  the  unflinching  earnestness  of 
that  last  talk  with  Rochester,  the  flight,  the  grateful 
and  quiet  days  at  Moor  House,  the  unearthly  and 
intellectual  self-mastery  of  St.  John  Rivers,  and  then 
the  return,  those  heaven  born  days  when  Rochester 
recovers  Jane,  and  the  piteous  beauty  of  the  reunion, 
with  Rochester  blind  and  with  the  unquenched  fires 
of  his  love  still  burning  brightly,  how  perfectly  con- 
ceived and  drawn!  There  are  greater  fabrics  of 
construction,  more  marvelous  stories,  or  design  more 
glorious,  perhaps  charged  with  more  subtlety  and 
graced  with  a  wider  outlook,  and  a  more  teeming 
vocabulary,  but  what  tale  in  the  whole  galaxy  of 
English  Fiction,  can  so  infix  itself  upon  the  memory, 
or  strain  with  every  turning  page  the  expectant  vision 
of  its  readers?  And  how  it  grips  the  heart,  with  its 
unswerving  intensity  and  reality,  its  verbal  strength, 
and  its  many  moments  of  humour  and  gentle  charm! 

[256] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

And  in  Trollope,  a  great  favorite  with  us,  who 
has  such  inestimable  excellence  of  style,  such  natural- 
ness, and  the  gift  of  a  discreet  power  to  represent, 
as  Howells  has  said  "the  English  world  as  it  ap- 
peared to  him  in  its  normal  moods  of  high-and-low 
mindedness;  vicious,  virtuous;  dull,  amusing;  respect- 
able and  disreputable;  wise  and  foolish;  but  in  all 
its  vanities  entirely  and  for  the  most  part  unconsci- 
ously English;"  in  him  again,  how  many  aspects  of 
misery,  how  many  overweighted  hearts,  how  much 
tangible  grief,  which  we  know  is  true,  what  mists  of 
disappointment  settle  on  his  pictures  of  life,  into  what 
touching  strains  are  the  chords  composed  which  sing 
the  "sad  humanity"  of  his  recurrent  groups  of  men 
and  women!  There  is  the  Warden,  unhappy  John 
Bold,  the  heart-break  of  Lily  Dale,  the  cross  pur- 
poses of  Lord  Lufton,  and  Griselda  and  Lucy  Rob- 
arts,  yet  that  indeed  is  all  delightful  perversion,  and 
very  sweetly  ended,  though  here  we  have  the  mourn- 
ful troubles  of  Mark  Robarts;  and  there  is  Mrs. 
Proudie  and  the  Bishop,  and  the  resolute  though 
perturbed  Mr.  Crawley;  surely  there  is  some  Misery 
there,  and  it  is  just  so  compounded,  in  its  every  day 
quality,  of  irritations,  and  perversions,  and  foolish 
ambitions,  as  to  demonstrate  even  more  fully  how 
that  Life,  to  be  Life  at  all,  must  be  sensibly  wretched, 

[257] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

and  unless  wretched,  defies  literary  skill  to  give  it 
any  interest  at  all. 

But  where  Misery  stands  immemorially  revealed 
is  in  the  pages  of  George  Elliott.  The  great  novels 
of  this  woman  move  along  wide  avenues  of  life  to 
predestined  tragedies.  Of  her  literary  limitations  Mr. 
Ho  wells  has  taught  us  thus  carefully  to  think,  "she 
had  many  lamentable  defects;  the  very  seriousness 
and  sincerity  of  her  motives  implied  them :  her  learn- 
ing over- weighted  her  knowledge;  her  conscience 
clogged  her  art;  her  strong  grasp  of  human  nature 
was  weakened  by  foibles  of  manner;  the  warmth  of 
her  womanly  sympathies  and  the  subtlety  of  her 
womanly  intuition  failed  of  their  due  effect,  because 
the  sympathies  were  somewhat  hysterical,  and  the 
intuitions  were  sometimes  over-intellectualized.  Her 
immense  reading  which  freed  her  from  the  worst 
influences  of  the  English  example  in  fiction,  cumbered 
her  with  pedantic  acquisitions,  under  which  her  style 
labored  conscious  and  diffuse;  her  just  sense  of  her 
own  power  fostered  a  kind  of  intellectual  vanity, 
fatal  to  art,  in  which  the  first — personally  intruded 
herself  into  the  story." 

This  profound  mind  searching  over  her  materials 
for  a  reproduction  of  Life,  seldom  found  them  un- 
touched with  the  stains  of  tears,  seldom  of  so  strong 

[258] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

a  thread  as  to  have  withstood  the  strain  of  tempta- 
tion, and  never  so  pure  as  to  have  escaped  its  tarnish, 
and  she  voluntarily  chose  just  this  kind  of  fabric, 
because  from  it,  for  literary  purposes,  the  highest 
results  issued,  the  most  wonderful  tapestries  could  be 
woven.  Thus  Maggie  Tulliver  and  Stephen  Guest 
are  drawn  for  us,  and  Hetty  Sorrel  and  Dinah 
Morris,  Casaubon  and  Dorethea  Brooke,  Lydgate 
and  Rosamond  Vincy,  Daniel  Deronda  and  Grand- 
court,  and  Gwendolen  Harleth,  and  all  the  earthly 
terrors  of  Janet  Dempster's  fate. 

And  so  it  is  with  Thomas  Hardy  and  William 
Black  and  Miss  Wilkins  and  Mrs.  Ward. 

But  we  hear  the  incredulous  protest  arising  on  all 
sides,  that  in  making  the  literary  excellence  of  these 
works  to  consist  in  the  subject  matter  of  Misery,  we 
have  substituted  for  people,  scenes,  conversations, 
episodes,  a  purely  moral  expression,  a  quite  indefinite 
generalization  of  feeling — such  as  misery  or  suffering 
— that  instead  of  emphasizing  that  Romola  for  in- 
stance, is  a  reconstruction  of  Florence  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  or  Barnaby  Rudge  a  picture  of  life  at  the 
time  of  the  Lord  Gordon  riots,  we  dwell  upon  the 
emotional  expression,  the  prevalent  or  predominant 
impression  of  suffering  men  and  women,  portrayed 
in  these  books. 

[259] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

This  however  is  not  quite  true,  since  the  misery  or 
the  sin  varies  in  its  individual  aspects  in  each  case. 
It  becomes  incorporated  in  each  person,  and  gathers 
a  special  character  from  the  contrasted  scenes  or 
times  at  which  it  is  represented.  We  mean  in  in- 
sisting upon  Sin,  Misery,  and  Ignorance,  as  controll- 
ing factors  in  the  creation  of  permanent  human  liter- 
ature that  these  words  express  genera,  of  which  each 
literary  example  is  a  specialized  case  or  manifesta- 
tion, a  particular,  even  an  individualized  case.  It 
would  be  as  impossible  to  put  Misery  or  Sin  or  Ignor- 
ance on  the  page  of  the  novelist,  or  the  historian  or 
the  dramatist  without  some  concrete  illustration,  as 
to  give  an  adequate  or  comprehensible  idea  of  a 
chemical  reaction  without  a  definite  instance.  Chem- 
ical reactions  are  the  whole  substance  of  chemistry, 
but  of  course  their  interest  resides  in  the  results 
gained,  in  the  special  associations  of  contacts  which 
the  chemist  forms.  Our  terms  are  of  necessity  gen- 
eral, and  the  especial  illustrations  drawn  from  liter- 
ature simply  exemplify  a  general  proposition.  In 
each  case  the  literary  charm  and  interest  inheres  in 
the  treatment  and  style — which  we  have  elsewhere 
alluded  to — and  the  especial  subject  matter  of  place 
and  individual  and  time,  but  that  literary  interest  is 
after  all  only  the  specialized  embodiment  of  the  pri- 

[260] 


SIN    AND    MISERY    IN    FICTION 

mary  stuff  of  feeling,  and  the  existence,  so  admirable 
and  stimulating  to  our  thoughts,  of  this  or  that  char- 
acter, in  a  book,  is  a  particular  realization  of  the 
undifferentiated  magma  (to  borrow  a  term  from 
vulcanology)  of  Sin,  or  Misery  or  Ignorance. 

But  the  pre-organized  condition  of  those  three 
terms  in  human  life  makes  it  possible  for  the  creative 
mind  of  the  writer  to  assume  and  incorporate  them 
in  his  or  her  exact  and  discrete  creations.  This  is 
plain  enough.  Nor  need  it  molest  us,  for  the  value 
of  this  thesis,  that  it  can  be  shown  that  much  and 
even  a  creditable  proportion  of  literature  involves  a 
different  kind  of  material.  We  may  have  been  hur- 
ried here  and  there  in  this  hastily  composed  essay  to 
claim  too  much  for  our  promulgation,  but  it  is  in 
nowise  impaired  thereby,  for  we  do  now  again  assert 
that  a  great,  a  paramount  amount  of  the  noble  and 
permanent  literature,  in  the  highest  sense,  has  come 
to  be  by  reason  of  the  imminence  everywhere  on  all 
sides  and  in  myriad  forms  of  Ignorance,  Sin,  and 
Misery. 

Walton's  "Complete  Angler,"  and  White's  "Na- 
tural History  of  Selborne,"  together  with  such  a  book 
as  Henry  James'  "A  Little  Tour  in  France"  are 
certainly  literature,  and  they  do  not  pervasively  or 
even  at  any  point  essentially  dwell  on  these  things. 
[261] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Let  it  be  so.  It  is  none  the  less  true  that  Browning's 
Mr.  Sludge  the  Spiritualist,  or  Carlyle's  French  Rev- 
olution, or  Goethe's  Sorrows  of  Werther,  or  Poe's 
Tales  do,  and  the  more  regnant  manifestations  of  the 
literary  genius  always  will.  In  which  matter,  as  we 
in  our  conclusion  point  out,  as  the  world  progressively 
grows  better,  and  a  more  even  material  happiness 
devolves  through  all  the  elements  of  the  state,  as  we 
escape  the  European  incubus,  it  is  to  be  expected 
that  Literature,  in  its  most  imaginative  forms,  will 
also  progressively  dwindle  and  disappear,  and — it  is 
no  matter. 


[262] 


CHAPTER  VII. 

IGNORANCE  AS  THE  SUBSTANCE  OF  POETRY 

The  title  of  this  chapter  repells  attention.  It  is  a 
monstrous  and  an  unquestionably  invidious  statement. 
That  those  lovely  word  weaving  and  inspired  struc- 
tures of  verbal  music  have  anything  to  do  with  Ignor- 
ance, when  too  they  so  often  are  full  of  learning  and 
thought,  seems  an  especially  rude  assault  upon  the 
patience  of  the  reader.  We  have  said  something 
about  it  elsewhere  and  it  is  now  our  unpleasant 
task  to  be  more  explicit,  even  at  the  risk  of  failure. 
Let  us  be  as  deliberate  and  cautious  as  the  responsi- 
bilities of  this  disagreeable  operation  demand. 

And  in  the  outset  as  a  useful  tonic  to  our  atten- 
tion and  the  liberalization  of  our  point  of  view,  we 
must  learn  to  forget  that  Ignorance,  in  a  cosmic  sense, 
is  so  ignoble  or  humiliating  a  condition;  that  it,  as 
applied  to  the  verity  of  things,  is  almost  surely  the 
enforced  position  of  the  most  informed.  We  might 
have  used  a  different  word  in  the  connections  we  are 
about  to  encounter,  but  we  retain  the  word  because, 
for  the  universality  of  our  contention,  it  thus  includes 
the  kind  of  necessary  darkness  enshrouding  even  the 
highest  speculation  and  inspired  utterance,  and  the 

[263] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

really  opprobious  and  simply  amusing  forms  of  un- 
knotying,  which  again,  in  literature,  serve  so  widely 
and  amiably  their  purpose.  Are  we  not  profoundly 
ignorant?  Are  we  not  frequently  driven  to  the  dread 
resentment  of  Omar  Khayam's  protest: 

What,  without  asking,  hither  hurried  Whence 

And  without  asking,  Whither  hurried  hence ! 
Oh  many  a  cup  of  this  forbidden  Wine 

Must  drown  the  memory  of  that  insolence? 

To  what  extent  in  the  categories  of  knowledge  can 
we  say  the  human  intelligence  has  reached  the  ulti- 
mate term?  Is  not  the  ultimate  term  itself  a  rational 
impossibility,  or  if  definable,  at  any  time  do  we  not 
retrace  our  steps,  feeling  the  delicious  unquiet,  the 
restless  expectancy  of  suddenly  surprising  the  forma- 
tive soul  of  things,  has  departed,  and  we  should 
surrender  to  the  stupifying  satisfaction  of  comprehen- 
sion? 

The  reflections  of  Mr.  Hartley  Burr  Alexander  in 
his  most  penetrating  essay  "Poetry  and  The  Indi- 
vidual," under  the  topic  of  Imagination,  are  im- 
mensely pleasing  to  us.  He  says:  "there  is  a  kind  of 
inherent  futility  in  any  effort  to  understand  the  world. 
Our  knowledge  is  at  best  a  parable,  and  the  under- 
standing mind,  the  human  mind  whose  business  it  is 
to  interpret  the  dark  revelation,  is  itself  but  a  filtra- 

[264] 


IGNORANCE   AND   POETRY 

tion  of  the  mystery  it  seeks  to  comprehend;  the  very 
substance  of  the  comprehension  is  also  the  substance 
of  the  puzzle.  Man  is  the  measure  of  reality,  but 
that  may  be  wholly  because  reality  comes  to  us 
humanized :  our  perceptions  not  only  colour  the  world 
of  substantial  things,  but  they  colour  our  understand- 
ing as  well,  and  give  to  all  our  knowledge  the  bias 
of  their  aberrations;  our  emotions  not  only  enliven 
the  grey  hues  of  thought,  but  they  also,  as  we  say, 
warm  with  human  interest  that  play  of  fact  which  is 
the  thought's  mainstay  and  source;  our  desires  not 
only  make  reasonable  our  aggressions,  but  they  also 
animate  the  counter-aggressions  of  the  world  at  large, 
and  so  make  the  world  intelligible  to  us.  But  the 
intelligibility  can  never  be  more  than  seeming." 

The  poet  realizes  this  mystery  of  the  world,  his 
deep  immersement  in  a  sea  of  beautiful  wonders; 
he  turns  to  the  spectacle  of  the  changing  seasons,  the 
innumerable  riddles  of  mere  life,  the  sensuous  splen- 
dor of  its  color  and  form,  the  epic  glory  of  its  history, 
he  finds  himself  enrolled  in  its  tumultuous  or  rhythmic 
progress,  and  by  the  instinct  of  his  own  intention, 
as  well  as  from  those  subtle  sympathies  with  the 
nature  of  things,  and  by  the  picturing  skill  of  his  mind, 
and  the  insistent  voice  within  him  becomes  in  litera- 
ture an  expression  of  this  sublime  Ignorance,  as  if  his 

[265] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

imagination,  reckless  of  limitations,  spoke  in  dreams 
and  riddles. 

And  yet  the  poet  is  credited  with  a  peculiar  in- 
sight— the  poetic  insight — that  insight  which  Alex- 
ander has  called  mood,  and  thus  defined,  "mood  is 
a  kind  of  insight.  It  is  not  insight  into  colourless,  in- 
tellectual truth,  nor  is  it  a  state  of  personal  bias  such 
as  is  consequent  upon  emotion.  Rather  it  is  an  un- 
folding of  what  is  deep-lying  in  character,  a  revela- 
tion of  spiritual  diatheses  and  of  the  nature  of  that 
which  is  most  native  and  lasting  in  us.  Hence  ex- 
pression of  mood,  if  the  expression  be  true,  seems  to 
represent  an  insight  into  reality  more  fundamental 
and  inevitable  than  any  other.  It  is  insight  into 
truth  through  spiritual  perspective.  It  is  poetic  in 
sight." 

But  this  insight  is  itself  a  revelation  of  the  incom- 
prehensible. It  is  the  insight  that  evokes  the  passion 
of  dismay  or  faith,  according  to  temperament,  and 
makes  the  poet  an  organism  of  exquisite  searching 
and  revealing  eloquence.  It  becomes  a  kind  of 
sublime  reiteration  of  Ignorance,  an  elevation  of  view 
which,  granting  a  further  outlook  adds  a  more  dis- 
tant prospect  which  is  involved  in  mists  in  whose 
fluctuations  the  poet  discerns  all  manner  of  beauties, 
or  before  which  as  the  mists  seem  dark  and  impen- 

[266] 


IGNORANCE   AND   POETRY 

etrable  he  sings  repiningly  or  mutinously.  The  sub- 
ject matter  is  not  precisely  Ignorance,  because  that 
only  becomes  subject  matter  as  it  is  revealed  in  indi- 
viduals, or  in  the  confession  of  ignorance  by  the 
writer  himself,  though  as  literary  substance  and  in- 
deed as  poetic  substance  it  is  often  so,  but  the  second 
sight — the  deuleros  scopos — of  the  poet  reveals  our 
circumvallation  of  mystery. 

He  raises  our  eyes  from  the  apparent  and  hard 
reality  of  pains  and  stones  and  stocks,  struggles,  com- 
panionships, games,  eating  and  wearing  and  the 
finite  emoluments  of  the  secular  chase,  to  a  world 
which  he  creates  from  the  flowing  and  discreet  images 
of  his  imagination,  to  a  world  which  he  may  pretend 
duplicates  this  present  one  but  which  still  is  the  lofty 
creature  of  his  mind. 

The  poet  in  his  self-surrender  passes  into  a  realm 
of  ideas,  images,  and  expressions,  which  reflect  the 
world  around  him,  but  reflect  it  through  his  person- 
ality, or,  as  Alexander  might  allow,  a  super-person- 
ality which  is  an  ideal.  To  quote  Alexander  him- 
self; he  says  "the  poetic  idea  is  not  merely  intellec- 
tual ;  it  is  never  apprehended  through  rationative  pro- 
cess. It  deals  not  with  the  utile,  logical  truth  of 
science,  but  with  a  truth  colored  by  personality  and 
mood.  Yet  here  is  the  paradox:  the  personality 

[267] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

which  is  celebrated,  and  in  its  celebration  creates  the 
habilliment  of  the  idea,  is  itself  impersonal.  It  rep- 
resents no  real  self  or  character,  but  always  an  apoth- 
eosised,  ideal  self;  and  all  its  value  arises  from  the 
felt  worth  of  this  ideal,  toward  which  the  creating 
mood  must  ever  unattainingly  aspire." 

Now  it  may  seem  a  useless  anachronism  of  idea 
and  word  to  claim  that  in  the  literature  of  poetry,  its 
substance  is  Ignorance,  indeed  at  first  it  resembles 
something  much  worse,  a  deliberate  perversion  of 
language  and  an  affected  and  forced  violence  of 
thought. 

But  we  are  not  willing  to  be  so  ruthlessly  routed. 
The  poet  indeed  creates,  and  does  so  with  infinite 
verissimilitude ;  he  uses  the  power  of  his  expression 
to  reflect  the  moods  of  his  mind,  and  imparts  to  us, 
his  listeners,  his  own  radiant  and  colored  visions;  as 
a  dramatist  he  gathers  together  characters  who  move 
in  stately  lines,  or  breathe  in  animated  ranks  before 
us,  and  play  in  a  mimic  world  some  idealized 
parts,  using  always  as  the  instruments  of  their  dia- 
logue the  exuberant  fancy  of  their  creator;  he 
seizes  familiar  things  and  spins  around  them  the 
lucid  chrysalis  of  words  which  gives  them  a 
strange  and  probably  unmerited  beauty  and  mean- 
ing; he  is  an  expert  necromancer  and  while  we 

[268] 


IGNORANCE   AND   POETRY 

boast,  in  the  adulatory  rapture  of  our  surprise  and 
pleasure,  that  the  poet  speaks  truth,  reflection  points 
out  that  he  more  generally  awakens  our  minds  to  a 
new  aspect  of  things  or  defines  for  us  feelings  tran- 
sient or  scarcely  perceptible,  and,  elevating  or  inten- 
sifying them,  acquaints  us  with  keen  realizations  of 
emotion,  which  but  for  his  mediation,  we  had  not 
known. 

As  Father  Barry  has  written  (Essay  on  Dante) 
"himself  to  himself  the  poet  sings  as  in  a  lone  land 
where  the  sky  and  sun,  streams  and  woods,  and  all 
they  nourish,  are  for  his  delight.  But  now  mark  the 
wonder.  This  being,  so  set  apart,  cannot  open  his 
lips,  breathing  his  hidden  thoughts,  but  he  is  answered 
by  innumerable  souls,  who  find  in  those  accents  their 
comfort,  in  those  meditations  what  they  have  ever 
believed,  in  the  strange  yet  familiar  music  a  rhythm 
to  which  the  heart  that  is  in  them  vibrates." 

Now  it  is  quite  clear  that  in  all  the  poet  writes  we 
have  a  supersensualized  world,  an  imaginary  world, 
a  world  to  which,  except  as  the  poet  invites  and 
leads  them,  the  great  crowd  are  strangers.  He  pours 
out  his  imagery,  he  devises  symbol,  he  energizes  allu- 
sion, he  transcribes  dreams,  he  initiates  feeling,  he 
intensifies  emotions,  he  describes  relations,  for  that 

[269] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

purpose,  and  above  all  he  is  endowed  with  the  "gift 
of  tongues"  and  with  music. 

But  the  poet  is  not  a  reality,  nor  are  his  dreams  and 
visions  and  allocutions  real.  They  are  artifices,  deli- 
cate, beautiful,  helpful,  inspiring,  especially  literary, 
and  have  the  slenderest  connection  or  no  connection 
at  all,  with  the  facts  of  the  case  whether  it  be  a  flower 
or  a  bird,  a  cloud,  or  an  historic  episode.  Of  course 
they  have  aesthetic  reality,  some  people  insist  (and 
in  a  transcendental  way,  rightly)  that  they  are  more 
real  than  stones  and  figures,  but  they  are  invariably 
a  re-presentation  of  the  poet's  mood,  his  eye,  his 
thought,  his  excitement  or  pleasure  or  rage.  They 
appeal  to  the  undeveloped  poet  in  his  auditors,  and 
all  together,  poet  and  audience  are  raised  into  a 
psychological  phase  which  has  no  reference  to  facts. 

Shelley  sings,  making  his  "cloud"  talk, 
"The  sanguine  sunrise,  with  his  meteor  eyes, 

And  his  burning  plumes  outspread, 
Leaps  on  the  back  of  my  sailing  rack, 

When  the  morning  star  shines  dead. 
As  in  the  jag  of  a  mountain  crag, 

Which  an  earthquake  rocks  and  swings, 
An  eagle  alit  one  moment  may  sit 

In  the  light  of  his  golden  wings. 
[270] 


IGNORANCE   AND   POETRY 

And   when  sunset  may   breathe,   from   the  lit   sea 
beneath, 

Its  ardours  of  rest  and  love, 
And  the  crimson  pall  of  eve  may  fall 

From  the  depths  of  heaven  above, 
With  wings  folded  I  rest,  on  mine  airy  nest, 

As  still  as  a  brooding  dove." 

But  this  is  impossible.  Lovely  and  appealing  and 
veritably  evoking  subjective  aspects  of  the  cloud  to 
which  we  respond  with  joy  and  thankfulness,  but  in 
any  literal  sense  absurd  because  the  sunrise  is  not 
sanguine  nor  does  it  have  meteor  eyes  and  there  are 
certainly  no  plumes  anywhere  discernible,  nor  could 
it  be  conceived  as  leaping  on  the  back  of  any  cloud, 
nor  do  sunsets,  as  animate  things,  breathe  ardors  or 
indeed  anything,  and  it  is  obvious  enough  that  no 
crimson  pall  falls  from  the  depths  of  heaven,  while 
it  is  an  aspect  of  mild  dementia  for  anyone  to  insist 
that  a  cloud  folds  its  wings.  What  is  a  cloud?  a 
condensation  of  moisture  in  minute  vesicles,  intoler- 
able as  a  place  of  habitation,  absolutely  devoid  of 
feeling,  and  most  propitious  when  precipitated  as 
water,  on  terrestrial  cabbages  and  peas. 

Poe  sings,  he  whom  Lang  has  called  "the  singer 
of  rare  hours  of  languor,  when  the  soul  is  vacant  of 
the  pride  of  life,  and  inclined  to  listen,  as  it  were,  to 
[271] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

the  echo  of  a  lyre  from  behind  the  hills  of  death,"  this 
poet  sings  in  his  Ulalume : 

Here  once  through  an  alley  Titanic, 
Of  cypress  I  roamed  with  my  soul— 
Of  cypress,  with  Psyche,  my  soul, 
These  were  days  when  my  heart  was  volcanic 
As  the  scoriae  rivers  that  roll — 
As  the  lavas  that  restlessly  roll 
Their  sulphureous  currents  down  Yaanek 

In  the  ultimate  climes  of  the  pole — 
That  groan  as  they  roll  down  Mount  Yaanek 

In  the  realm  of  the  boreal  pole. 
This  more  nearly  approaches  that  definition  of 
poetry  as  "sense  swooning  into  nonsense."  But  it  is 
tolerated,  it  is  admired,  we  do  ourselves  admire  it, 
and  there  is  no  reason  that  we  should  not,  because 
it  becomes  literature  by  reason  of  the  basic  and  con- 
ditioning Ignorance  which  envelopes  every  human 
statement  of  that  kind.  We  can  afford  to  live  in 
dreams  with  the  poet,  when  we  get  rid  of  the  assump- 
tions of  science,  as  we  easily  can,  since  fundamentally 
we  do  not  know  what  our  exact  unconditioned  nature 
is,  and  the  wildest  fancies  may  be  indulged  in  and 
momentarily,  at  least,  made  to  take  the  place  of  the 
dull  commonplaces  around  us. 

Even  Shakespeare,  in  his  sublime  tragedies,  is  put- 

[272] 


IGNORANCE   AND   POETRY 

ting  words  and  thoughts  into  the  mouths  of  dead  men 
and  women,  who  never  said  such  things,  and  prob- 
ably never  would  have  said  them.  The  point  we 
reach  is  this.  That  the  poet's  role  and  his  poetry, 
is  inextricably  conditioned  upon  the  intangibility  of 
our  human  position  as  cognizers  of  the  world  about 
us,  its  history,  its  future,  its  meaning,  substance  and 
contents.  The  poet  and  poetry  is  permissible  here, 
because  we  do  not  ^non>;  because  the  pervasive 
Ignorance  which  envelopes  the  whole  of  life,  pene- 
trates its  interstices,  clouds  even  sensation  with  a 
scepticism  of  its  own  realness,  gives  the  Imagination 
a  welcome,  an  inevitable  activity. 

The  very  mutability  of  individual  life,  its  precari- 
ousness,  its,  so  to  speak,  episodic  and  momentary 
character,  its  changing  conditions,  its  shortness,  the 
disappearance,  complete  and  irrevocable,  of  the  past, 
with  its  scenes  and  actors  involves  every  utterance  we 
make  about  them  in  Ignorance,  and  compels  us  to 
invoke  the  poetic,  the  imaginative  function  of  repro- 
duction, of  dramatic  assimilation  and  representation. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  of  this.  Saturated  with  the 
self-satisfaction  of  complete  knowledge,  literature  in 
its  imaginative  forms  dies.  Reflect  also  upon  the 
fact,  that  complete  knowledge  means  more  than  a 
memorization  of  phenomena  and  principles,  more 

[273] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

than  the  ability  to  accurately  assemble  the  scenes  and 
events  of  the  past.  It  means  the  understanding  of 
the  phenomena,  and  the  exact  realization  of  the  past. 

Take  the  great  poems,  take  little  ones,  for  that 
matter.  What  are  they?  Verbal  illusions.  Real  in 
one  sense  but  still  dependent  upon  the  shrouded 
nature  of  life,  to  give  them  applicability  and  vogue, 
dependent  upon  the  unescapable  isolation  of  the  man 
who  wrote  them,  dependent  upon,  if  we  may  force 
so  violent  and  true  a  statement  across  the  readers 
protest,  upon  Ignorance,  for  only  as  we  are  ignorant 
can  we  illusionize,  idealize,  poetize,  or,  as  we  say, 
"romance." 

Look  at  the  poem  of  Paradise  Lost.  If  there  are 
any  facts  in  the  matter  at  all,  with  which  that  won- 
derful creation  concerns  itself,  no  one  believes  they 
were  as  Milton  paints  them.  It  is  quite  inconceivable 
that  they  could  be.  If  we  exactly  knew,  or  better, 
if  Milton  knew,  he  never  could  have  indulged  for 
an  instant  in  his  splendid  word  pictures.  Knowledge 
of  it  would  have  exploded  the  balloon  of  his  inspira- 
tion in  an  instant.  The  preclusion  would  have  been 
absolute,  and  he  would  have  turned  to  other  themes 
unknown  or  unknowable,  in  their  details,  for  the  ex- 
pansion and  exercise  of  his  majestic  faculty. 

The  psychology  of  this  is  peculiar,  the  fact  unde- 

[274] 


IGNORANCE   AND   POETRY 

niable.  As  science  which  stands  today  for  a  kind 
of  absolutism  in  knowing,  as  science  increases,  and 
invades  attention,  poetry  decreases  or  is  driven  to 
those  fields  where  science  holds  no  sway,  and  the 
scientific  mind,  with  its  stocked  phrases,  its  weariless 
compunctions,  its  enormous  gravity,  would  hardly  be 
expected  to  furnish  literature  with  a  Keats  or  a 
Spenser.  In  Goethe  perhaps  we  find  the  exception- 
ally rare  union  of  the  poetic  and  the  scientific,  and,  to 
my  mind,  we  do  not  find  in  him  the  sweet,  the  ineluct- 
able thrill  of  poetry.  He  rationalizes,  and  Schiller,  as  a 
poet,  seems  more  genuine.  Goethe,  where  he  is  a  poet 
speculates  and  moves  into  areas  of  thought  where 
science  has  as  yet  made  but  indifferent  progress,  and, 
at  any  rate,  Goethe  possessed  the  dual  nature  either 
one  of  which  he  might  at  will  cast  off,  or  so  vaguely 
mix  them  that  we  have  a  tantalizing  product,  which 
is  a  kind  of  philosophy,  and  perhaps  no  philosophy 
should  be  called  literature. 

But  where  philosophy  becomes  poetic,  as  so  much 
of  it  does,  it  is  quite  measurably  ignorant. 

The  poesy  of  nations  is  in  their  youth,  when  they 
do  not  know,  and  when  they  do  not  care  to  know. 
It  might  be  asked  contemptuously  why  not  go  farther 
back  and  see  the  poetic  results  in  the  Botocudos  and 
the  Patagonians;  they  are  early  enough,  and  they 

[275] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

are  steeped  in  ignorance;  if  ignorance  is  the  best 
soil  for  poetry  why  not  get  it  from  the  long  shoremen, 
and  the  coolies,  children,  and  nursemaids.  Well 
there  is  possibly  a  just  rebuke  in  this,  since  the  word, 
ignorance,  easily  permits  misinterpretation.  We  have 
chosen  it,  because  of  its  rude  and  brutal  suggestivity, 
but  it  is  quite  evident  that  there  are  grades  of  ignor- 
ance on  higher  and  lower  levels  of  general  culture. 
It  is  evident  that  the  child  is  ignorant,  and  it  is  no  less 
plain  that  the  man  is  ignorant,  the  ignorance  of  the 
child  is  within  a  narrower  range  of  cognitions  and 
the  ignorance  of  the  man  within  a  greater,  the  ignor- 
ance of  the  child  carries  with  it  no  keen  suggestive- 
ness,  and  the  ignorance  of  the  man  does.  By  reason 
of  a  deep  apperception  in  the  man  of  the  limits  of 
human  knowledge,  his  ignorance  passes  by  a  finer 
name  than  the  primitive  uneducation  of  the  child. 

This  ignorance  of  the  child  makes  him,  especially 
if  he  has  some  adumbrant  gift  of  poesy,  put  life  in  his 
toys  and  meaning  in  his  childish  acts,  makes  him  love 
the  baby  doll,  or  hate  the  harmless  and  ugly  skin. 
Imagination  comes  into  its  province  and  holds  domin- 
ion as  we  free  ourselves  from  the  tyranny  of  knowl- 
edge. The  poet  is  a  child,  and  he  runs  out  into  the 
world  of  impressions,  and  sights,  and  moving  spec- 
tacles, and  beauty,  and  unencumbered  or,  at  least, 

[276] 


IGNORANCE   AND   POETRY 

not  worried  by  the  sciences,  puts  a  dryad  in  the  tree, 
a  nymph  in  the  stream,  a  god  in  the  cloud,  voices  in 
the  leaves,  and  spirits  in  the  winds,  and  perchance 
in  a  verdant  field,  where  the  sage  botanist  will  chiefly 
find  ten  or  more  species  of  graminae,  the  poet  sings 
(and  in  this  case  it  is  Robert  Herrick) 

Here  in  green  meadows  sits  eternal  May, 
Purpling  the  margents,  while  perpetual  day 
So  doubly  gilds  the  air,  as  that  no  night 
Can  ever  rust  the  enamel  of  the  light. 
Here  naked  younglings,  handsome  striplings,  run 
Their  goals  for  maidens'  kisses,  which  when  done 
Then  unto  dancing  forth  the  learned  round 
Commixt  they  meet,  with  endless  roses  crowned ; 
And  here  we'll  sit  on  primrose  banks,  and  see 
Love's  chorus  led  by  Cupid. 

Certainly  the  poets  who  have  been  singing  these 
last  three  hundred  years  are  not  victims  of  hallucina- 
tions, they  are  not  averse  to  occasionally  taking  the 
world  as  the  rest  of  us  do,  and  they  suffer  from  no  in- 
vincible prejudice  against  chemistry  or  physics.  But 
their  imagination,  which  is  the  gift  which  makes  them 
literary,  is  their  charter  of  liberty  from  the  restrictions 
of  formal  knowledge,  giving  them  free  play  in  the 
azure  and  purple  fields  of  dreams.  They  assume  an 
ignorance,  and  they  can  assume  it,  because  we,  as 

[277] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

humans,  possess  no  indisputable  sense  of  certainty, 
and  here  our  claim  remains  fortified  and  unassailable. 
Those  of  us  who  are  certain,  will  never  make  poets, 
and  never  add  poetry  to  the  sum  of  literary  effects. 
Poetry  is  a  surrender  to  caprice,  but  a  caprice  which 
ministers  to  emotion,  and  always  is  beautiful. 

If  we  may  say  so  with  entire  reverence,  God  can 
use  neither  imagination  or  poetry;  for  His  absolute 
knowledge  forbids  both.  The  intense  basic  and  in- 
terfused oneness  of  His  existence  with  creation, 
allows  no  subterfuges  of  fancy,  no  indulgence  of  aes- 
thetic invention,  no  room  for  alternatives,  no  place 
for  tasteful  suggestions  or  melodic  impersonations,  nor 
is  there  any  desire  or  need  of  them.  Absolute  iden- 
tification with  reality  kills  the  main  springs  of  inven- 
tion as  a  literary  agent.  Immobility  of  mind  is  the 
penalty  of  perfect  knowledge,  and  "to  know  as  we 
are  known"  means  the  death  note  of  creative  enter- 
prise. As  we  have  noted,  in  Heaven,  or  in  any  state 
where  Sin  and  Misery  are  quite  absent,  and  forgot- 
ten, much  of  the  literature  of  the  earth  as  we  know 
it  must  cease,  so  also  in  such  beatific  conditions  where 
ignorance  is  absolutely  banished;  that  mortal  state  of 
irreparable  doubt,  in  which  we  now  live,  quite  gone, 
poetry  will  become  a  memory,  the  impulse,  the  ener- 
gumen,  that  makes  it,  dead. 

[278] 


IGNORANCE   AND   POETRY 

Today,  so  full  and  dauntless  is  the  light  of  science, 
so  enthralling  the  hunt  for  facts,  so  sanitary  and  clean 
the  asylums  of  religion,  that  poetry  feels  the  negation 
of  its  province,  and  turns  its  fancies  to  the  far  past, 
of  which  it  may  say  what  it  best  pleases. 

If  it  stands  in  the  light  of  the  forum  and  feels  its 
mythologies  all  banished,  it  still  turns  to  the  ends  and 
purposes  of  life,  it  becomes  introspective  and  mingles 
its  lament  or  raises  its  paean  with  those  who  despair, 
or  those  who  challenge  and  go  forward. 


[279] 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  CONCLUSION 

If  books  were  quite  absent  from  the  world  and  the 
pleasure  of  reading  banished  the  ennui  of  life  to  some 
might  seem  quite  insurmountable.  The  daily  papers 
which  are  now  involved  in  our  lives  to  such  a  degree 
as  to  seem  almost  a  necessary  part  of  its  tissue,  and 
which  carry  on  their  pages  the  chronology  of  each 
day  as  it  were,  lifting  their  Argus-eyed  inspection 
upon  the  business,  the  political,  the  domestic,  or 
social  aspects  of  the  earth,  these  as  indispensable 
adjuncts  to  the  mechanics  of  life  might  be  less  easily 
spared.  Books  seem  to  us  invaluable,  but  it  is  ap- 
parent that  great  numbers  of  people  go  through  the 
motions  of  life  successfully,  and  even  enjoy  its  vari- 
ous stock  of  sensations  without  recourse  to  the  pages 
of  authors.  And  it  can  be  at  once  remembered  that 
the  ancients  accomplished  life  without  them,  in  our 
sense,  while  almost  whole  nations  of  men  endure 
the  privation  today  of  never  seeing  a  book  from  their 
cradle  to  their  grave. 

All  of  which  goes  to  prove  that  they  are  not  essen- 
tial to  the  routine  of  life,  to  which  the  cynic  might 
eagerly  add  that  they  are  not  only  not  necessary,  but 

[280] 


THE    CONCLUSION 

that  the  real  pleasures  of  life  would  gain  a  desirable 
prominence  if  they  were  out  of  the  way,  and  that  the 
conceit  and  stupidity  of  authors  only  aggravated  or  in- 
creased the  miseries  of  existence.  He  might  point 
with  ill-natured  admiration  to  the  unmolested  physi- 
cal happiness  of  animals  whose  brains  are  not  invaded 
by  the  eccentricities  of  philosophers,  or  their  diges- 
tion disturbed  by  the  accumulation  of  ephemeral  in- 
formation. Of  course  this  is  perversion,  and  the 
burden  of  life  has  derived  a  sensible  easement  by  rea- 
son of  the  pleasures  brought  to  the  mind  through 
books. 

But  all  books  are  not  literature.  A  great  number 
serve  us  all  sorts  of  facts,  and  the  enormous  mass  of 
purely  educational  works,  though  well  written,  and 
the  clusters  of  reportorial  books  on  travels,  lives,  and 
events,  are  hardly  to  be  considered  as  literary.  They 
may  become  so,  as  scientific  books  often  do,  if  so 
written  in  style  and  treatment  as  to  edify  or  recreate 
our  minds  with  that  peculiar  pleasure  which  we 
realize  in  choice  and  expressive  phraseology,  adroit- 
ness of  illustration,  and  illuminating  thought. 

But  Literature  per  se  addresses  the  sentiments, 
and  we  have  endeavored  to  show  that  as  an  accident 
of  human  nature,  or  let  us  say  more  convincingly, 
as  a  part  of  it,  Literature  best  develops  in  an  environ- 

[281] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

ment,  nay  that  it  derives  its  substance  from,  the  pres- 
ence, of  Sin,  Ignorance,  and  Misery,  that  Heaven 
is  without  Literature,  and  that  the  progressive  physi- 
cal betterment  of  social  conditions,  the  improving 
sanitation  of  civics,  the  lessening  horrors  of  life,  the 
widening  influences  of  humanitarian  and  scientific 
methods  of  government,  are  likely  to  lessen  the  cre- 
ative faculties.  As  we  less  intensely  throb  to  the 
urgent  presence  of  these  three  things,  and  decline, 
so  to  speak,  into  universal  contentment,  and  reach 
artificial  states  where  even  the  emotions  shall  be 
subdued  to  the  control  of  a  regulated  judgment,  or 
somehow  submitted  to  the  monitor  of  legislative  in- 
junction and,  as  Spencer  and  Wells  in  their  con- 
trasted ways  have  shown,  the  integration  of  nations 
goes  on,  and  war  disappears,  and  communities 
assume  the  diethral  pulsations  of  ideal  machines  or, 
as  in  "Looking  Backward"  the  individual  is  lost  in 
the  communal  commonwealth,  and  the  fine  glow  of 
universal  well  being  spreads,  then  Literature  declines. 
The  commercial  state  of  society  is  not  however 
without  its  display  of  Misery  and  Sin.  Avarice  and 
greed  and  the  ingenuity  of  heartless  money  making 
are  then  offered  to  the  study  of  the  observer,  and 
indeed  we  are  just  now  having  such  an  illustration  of 
the  useful  literary  effectiveness  of  these  things.  Here 

[282] 


THE    CONCLUSION 

is  Norriss'  Octopus  and  his  Pit  and  lately  Upton 
Sinclair's  Jungle,  though  the  latter  perhaps  has  more 
merit  as  a  denunciation  than  as  a  novel,  and  Mclvar's 
Overlord.  There  will  be  indeed  wide  fields  of  pos- 
sibilities in  the  writing  line,  in  science,  in  natural 
description,  in  travel,  but  such  writing  is  one  way  of 
admitting  n>e  don't  £nou>,  as  a  lar§e  Part  °f  lt  K 
conjecture,  argument,  the  eloquence  of  an  advocate 
who  feels  his  own  predicament  of  mental  insecurity. 
Even  so  charming  a  book  as  Ruskin's  Modern  Paint- 
ers is  an  unestablished  plea,  and  at  any  rate  is  an 
appendage  and  commentary  upon  Art,  and  there- 
fore not  primarily  Literature. 

The  conclusion  we  reach  is  interesting,  and  per- 
haps to  some  may  have  the  merit  of  novelty.  In  no 
way  can  it  cause  alarm.  If  Literature,  as  an  inci- 
dent of  our  human  state,  and  doubtless  one  of  its 
embellishments  as  well,  is  the  splendid  sign  of  our 
imperfect  condition  it  is  small  consequence  if  it  van- 
ishes with  our  transference  to  finer  realms  of  feeling, 
unlimited  affluence  of  knowledge,  and  supreme 
delight;  for  there,  even  the  provocative  of  desire 
(itself  a  kind  of  misery)  will  be  absent,  and  the 
ecstatic  lines  of  Richard  Crashaw  to  St.  Teresa 
would,  in  the  place  of  the  poet's  entire  happiness, 
be  impossible: 

[283] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

Let  all  thy  scattered  shafts  of  light  that  play 
Among  the  leaves  of  thy  large  books  of  day, 
Combined  against  this  breast  at  once  break  in, 
And  take  away  from  me  myself  and  sin ; 
This  gracious  robbery  shall  thy  bounty  be, 
And  my  best  fortunes  such  fair  spoils  of  me. 
O  thou  undaunted  daughter  of  desires ! 

By  all  thy  dower  of  lights  and  fires 

By  all  the  eagle  in  thee,  all  the  dove, 

By  all  thy  lives  and  deaths  of  love. 

By  thy  large  draughts  of  intellectual  day 
And  by  thy  thirsts  of  love  more  large  than  they, 
By  all  thy  brim-filled  bowls  of  fierce  desire, 
By  thy  last  morning's  draught  of  liquid  fire, 
By  the  full  kingdom  of  that  final  kiss 
That  seized  thy  parting  soul,  and  sealed  thee  His ; 

By  all  the  heaven  thou  hast  in  Him, 

Fair  sister  of  the  seraphim ! 

By  all  of  thine  we  have  in  thee — 

Leave  nothing  of  myself  in  me ; 

Let  me  so  read  thy  life  that  I 

Unto  all  life  of  mine  may  die." 

And   thus   veritably   it   appears   that   Literature, 

which  is  so  often  regarded  as  the  Glory  of  Life  is  the 

Symbol  of  our  Fall.     Now  of  course  this  exclusion  of 

Literature  in  Heaven  is  not  limited  to  the  physical 

[284] 


THE    CONCLUSION 

circumstances  of  books  and  printing  presses,  binder- 
ies and  proof,  but  to  the  essential  implications  of 
Literature,  viz.  verbal  arrangements  of  ideas,  affect- 
ing the  sentiments,  so  that  in  Heaven  there  can  be  no 
drama,  no  poetry,  no  fiction,  no  history.  It  is  well 
enough  to  have  it  so,  but — if  Heaven  is  itself  a  dream 
— there  are  some  practical  apprehensions  to  be  in- 
dulged in  here  on  earth  as  to  the  extinction  of  the 
same  mental  activities. 

Society  grows  generally  better,  more  humane,  even 
more  uniform.  In  a  country  like  ours,  which  in- 
creases in  prosperity,  in  which  the  dispensation  of 
education  and  opportunity  is  allowed  to  all,  Misery, 
Sin  and  Ignorance  tend  to  disappear;  society  tends 
to  become  mechanically  perfect,  if  not  morally  good. 
That  Ignorance,  even  which  we  made  the  substance 
of  Poetry,  and  which  certainly  never  can  depart 
from  life,  is  meretriciously  replaced  by  a  kind  of  sci- 
entific cock-sureness,  which  expels  its  literary  effec- 
tiveness. 

In  an  essay  on  Signs  of  the  Times  Carlyle  has  said, 
deploring  the  predominance  of  Man's  mechanical 
powers,  that  "we  might  fancy  either  that  man's 
Dynamical  nature  was,  to  all  spiritual  intents,  extinct, 
or  else  so  perfected  that  nothing  more  was  to  be 

[285] 


SUBSTANCE     OF     LITERATURE 

made  of  it  by  the  old  means."  Whatever  rhetorical 
clamor  is  just  now  being  made  by  College  and  Uni- 
versity presidents  over  national  deterioration,  it  is 
quite  certain  that  in  these  United  States  general 
humanity  is  better  off  than  anywhere  else  or  otherwise 
there  must  be  some  monstrous  misconception  in  the 
minds  of  men,  that  brings  them  to  our  shores  at  the 
rate  of  one  million  a  year.  And  every  year  seems 
to  bring  new  ameliorations  to  their  condition  here. 

We  can  produce  such  improvement  forward  until 
we  reach  a  time  when  a  kind  of  social  quietude  pre- 
vails, from  the  high  average  of  individual  comfort, 
individual  sobriety,  and  individual  intelligence,  cur- 
rent everywhere.  And  with  that  quietude  the  men- 
tal powers  of  creation,  unstimulated  by  the  spectacle 
of  Sin,  Ignorance  and  Misery  will  themselves  grad- 
ually lapse  into  quiescence. 

This  means  the  retirement,  even,  of  the  faculty  of 
aesthetic  appreciation  of  the  literary  qualities  of  Sin, 
Ignorance  and  Misery;  and  so,  with  us,  happier,  bet- 
ter, and  less  ignorant,  than  the  Old  World,  which 
will  never  reach  any  of  these  conditions,  Literature 
will  wane. 


[286] 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  UBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  679  050     5 


